Fully Ignited by Shannon Stacey

Fully IgnitedNarrated by Tatiana Sokolov

The third and youngest Kincaid sibling finds his HEA in the final book of Shannon Stacey’s Boston Fire trilogy, Fully Ignited.

Scott Kincaid is feeling a little jealous of all the love and happiness going around. His sisters are both happy with their respective partners (who also happen to be his best friends) and his buddy Rick Gulotti is all loved up too. For a long time, Scott was happy to play the field but he’s feeling the itch to settle down. Near the end of the previous book, Controlled Burn, Scott went on a “dating hiatus”. It sounds counterintuitive, but the idea was sound. He’s taken a step back from hooking up with girls in clubs and bars and is instead looking more carefully for the woman who might be his “one”.

His fellow firefighters joke he wants a “television wife” – a bit like June Cleaver but with better hair perhaps. That’s not entirely accurate; Scott isn’t a throwback from the 50s. But his experience was of a stay-at-home mother and that’s what he envisions when he thinks about her. It’s common in the area he grew up in and not entirely surprising he might think that way. In some respects, this is a failure of imagination for Scott – my impression wasn’t that he was against his (yet-to-be-identified) wife working per se, more that he hadn’t really thought about a different paradigm.

However, when he meets Jamie Rutherford – a lieutenant firefighter come to Ladder 37/Engine Company 59 to relieve while another LT is out injured, Scott’s imagination takes flight in a whole new way.

Jamie is a dedicated and skilled firefighter. She’s had to battle against the innate sexism of the industry in which she works but she’s nevertheless succeeding in a tough job. She has no intentions of getting involved with a firefighter in her crew but Scott Kincaid is just her type and it’s clear they have some smoking hot chemistry. (Really, I feel I’m obliged to use at least one firefighting pun in this review. I think it’s probably a law or something.)

Scott is Jamie’s direct report and therefore, getting involved is not a good idea. While it was nice to have the gender flip of the boss being the woman, it’s still a situation which can become very murky. The narrative acknowledged the possibility of sexual harassment claims and other workplace issues which could arise – and it’s the main reason that Scott and Jamie keep their relationship secret (well, they think it’s secret anyway). But I felt it was really problematic for them to become involved when they were working so closely together. I thought it needed a little more examination. I don’t think such a relationship would be as consequence-free in real life, particularly not for Jamie.

Leaving that aside (and, if one is to enjoy the listen, one kind of has to), Scott and Jamie get along well and, for the most part, Scott fully respects her and her authority at work. I did appreciate that Scott (for the most part) didn’t try to tell Jamie how to suck lemons and that he didn’t have any toxic masculinity issues with having a female firefighter as his superior officer.

Ultimately, the big sticking point for Jamie and Scott is their future. First – do they want to have one with each other and second, does Scott expect Jamie to quit her job? Because Jamie’s not going to do that. She’s a firefighter as naturally and as legitimately as Scott is – why should SHE have to stop doing what she loves in order to be with him? As it is the main conflict, I did think it was given the attention it deserved and, I liked where it ended up.

The narration was the solid, entertaining listen I expect from Tatiana Sokolov. It’s why she’s one of my favourite narrators. I find her performances reliably good with only rare exception. I like the way she delivers the sexual tension of a romance and how intimate scenes aren’t overplayed.

In Fully Ignited, Ms. Sokolov gets give her Boston accents a bit of a workout. What I especially liked in this regard is that they, too, weren’t overdone. The accents were noticeable but not caricatures.

The heroes in the series all sound very similar, which is a thing I say fairly often about a number of narrators. There were subtle differences between Aidan, Danny, Rick and Scott for example but they were pretty darn subtle and mostly I relied on context and dialogue tags to work out who was who. (That’s not so much a complaint as an observation.)

On the other hand, where a character is differentiated by age – Scott’s dad, Tommy Kincaid, for example, the vocal change is far more noticeable. It’s an area where Ms. Sokolov excels.

Shannon Stacey is an author I trust to deliver an entertaining story with realistic characters, fun, sexy romance and believable friendships and community. Paired with a narrator of Ms. Sokolov’s calibre, my listening pleasure was never in doubt.

Kaetrin


Narration: B+

Book Content: B

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence Rating: Fighting

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Harlequin Audio

Fully Ignited was provided to AudioGals by Harlequin Audio for a review.

 

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Contemporary Romance Audiobook Review

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