The Fireman Who Loved Me (The Bachelor Firemen of San Gabriel #1)

By Jennifer Bernard

Publisher: Avon
Publication Date: April 24, 2012
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Source: Publisher

Captain Brody has been badly burned by his ex-wife. When he orders Ryan, his star fireman, to participate in a bachelor auction, little does he know he’s the one who will lose his heart.

Melissa McGuire is a brainy local news producer trying to get her career back on track. She can’t believe she’s being set up by her grandmother, who bid on a date with a fireman at the auction. She prefers the artsy type, not the tough, commanding , though clearly attractive, fire chief.

And yet, they can’t resist each other, especially once her ambitious news anchor assigns her the “Thanksgiving with the Firefighters” news special. Add in her grandmother’s matchmaking and the combined efforts of Captain Brody’s crew…can Brody help being the first bachelor to succumb to love, and the crazy rollercoaster ride of the Curse?

Goodreads Summary

This was probably a bad idea even before I started reading. My brother is a fireman and I guarantee you, there are not a lot of hot bachelors just sitting around his firehouse. I’ve met one that I’d call “interesting,” but he was older than me and frankly, that would make him prehistoric. I have to give it to the author, she did get a lot of the technical stuff right but the rest of the story was tangled, cluttered and a little lacking in romance.

Melissa McGuire’s grandmother is tired of waiting for her stop seeing men who are all wrong for her and is taking the bull by the horns – or the hose – and is going to buy her a date at the auction of the Bachelor Firemen of San Gabriel. Maybe Nelly wasn’t quite…clear when she asked Melissa to meet her at the hotel for her birthday that this would be a beefcake auction, but what’s a grandmother to do when she needs to get her granddaughter settled down? Melissa turns tail and never sees Nelly plunk down a huge amount of money on the supremely gorgeous Ryan who is a little, uh, dismayed at the thought of a date with a woman of her vintage, not knowing the date is for Melissa.

Ryan puts on the puppy dog eyes until his Captain finally agrees to take the date in his place. Harry Brody is a bit of a legend, known for his calm in the face of danger and the fact that he’s never lost a man. He’s shocked – pleased – when he finds out the date is with Melissa, although his plans included the Senior Specials. The thing is, as attracted as they are to each other, they also manage to push each other’s buttons and they go from biting each other’s heads off to sucking each other’s faces off. No happy medium. Then into their relationship, a million complications arise and that’s where the plot went haywire.

Melissa is a television news producer at a small-market station and her main job seems to be corralling the high-maintenance, rather trampy anchor Ella. Ella pretty much becomes Melissa’s shadow for the story, hanging out with her at the firehouse where one of the major plotlines develops then for two more at the television station where more drama is happening. I didn’t like her – if she had to be the villain, fine. She still didn’t need to be everywhere especially when you added in large appearances by Harry’s ex-wife and Melissa’s sleazy ex-boss. Then there’s a started, dropped, picked up, dropped and picked up news story that Melissa was supposedly passionate about that was pretty important. I can give you another half dozen semi-significant storylines that also were running, all at the same time Harry and Melissa’s story was going on.

I really could have liked Harry and Melissa’s romance if it had been allowed to develop outside of all of the noise of the rest of the story. Harry was my kind of hero – not too alpha but strong enough to know how to be. He’s kind, caring, loyal and protective by nature and yummy and sexy without even trying. I liked Melissa too – she was damn good at her job and at managing Ella without her figuring it out. She’d had a big blow to her ego and took a lot of things too personally but she made it all better nicely. They just never had time for romance. It was, “you’re a pain,” to “you make me hot,” to “let’s have sex all the time,” to the bad stuff to the good stuff. No sweet romance, no fun times talking. The air was sucked out of the story by everyone else.

My Summary: If I knew the next book in the series focused more on the couple and had far, far fewer distractions, I’d probably pick it up because I did like the way the author wrote the couple. I just could not enjoy this one because I was constantly distracted by all of the other stuff happening, mostly Ella. I’ll even let it go that there are no scuzzy-looking guys in this firehouse and they don’t swear like sailors or tell morbid jokes, just please give me some romance!

My Rating: C