To Protect & Serve by Staci Stallings

My sincerest apologies for an extreme dearth of posts. Being back home for the summer has halted by review writing in a way I did not foresee. I'll try to do better! But I am traveling quite a bit this month and won't return to work and regular life in Africa until August. So no promises... Here's a review I wrote a while ago but never got around to formatting and posting. It is a good book though!

To Protect & Serve by Staci Stallings. Spirit Light Publishing, 2013. 347p. (ASIN: B008391QB2) Series: The Courage Series, #1

The other night I was flipping through my Kindle and saw this one that I had gotten for free a while back. For whatever reason I was in the mood for a medical drama and this seemed close enough. I really enjoyed it. Enough to actually buy book 2 and 3 in the series and I hardly ever buy ebooks – less than 5 in the year I’ve owned my Kindle Touch. (Authors take note: It’s a great idea to include a preview chapter of the next book.)

Goodreads Summary:

To save others' lives, they will risk their own...

Houston firefighter, Jeff Taylor is a fireman's fireman. He's not afraid of anything, and no situation is too dangerous to keep him on the sideline if lives are at stake.

Lisa Matheson runs a semi-successful ad agency that's on the brink of falling apart. Her employees are incompetent and her schedule has become exhausting. When she takes on a client with a brilliant idea for a big conference, she thinks that maybe, finally this is her lucky break. However, the fire station wasn't what she had in mind for finding conference speakers. When she falls for a handsome but shy firefighter, it's possible that life might just be going her way for a change. The only problem is she can't control Jeff and the death wish he seems to have...

My Review:

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this tale of an extremely shy fireman and a I-can-do-everything-myself, take-charge business woman getting to know each other and fighting against falling in love and against allowing themselves to love and be loved.

I laughed aloud, I cried. Jeff is a fireman and tough situations come with the job. One fire in particular leads to heart break for many. The author does a great job describing the grief and self inflicted guilt the characters are faced with. Makes me wonder if she’s lost someone close.

Somewhere I got the impression that this book (and series) was Christian fiction. It is, but it isn’t. It’s “Christian” if all you mean by that is the characters pray and God is mentioned. It isn’t if you expect the characters to go to church, have a personal relationship with God and include the Bible in their daily lives.

There are several passionate kisses and the characters struck me as your average “good” people, trying to do what’s right, but in the end still living to please themselves. There is no bad language and no sex, though there is a bit of innuendo.

Go read it! Find it at a library near you; Buy it from Amazon

Disclosure: This was an Amazon freebie for a while. The opinions I have expressed are my own. 

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