Narrated by Iggy Toma
Up in Smoke is book 4 in Annabeth Albert’s Hotshots series, set in and around the firefighting community in fictional Painter’s Ridge, Oregon. Brandt Wilder is in town for the fire season, helping a friend out by fixing up a house in return for rent and working as part of the smoke-jumping team.
One day he comes home to find a baby in a carrier on his doorstep – but she is not alone. With baby Jewel, comes her Uncle Shane.
Shane Travis is a country/folk singer trying to make his mark in the music business. The year before, his sister, Shelby, took him on a birthday adventure, tandem skydiving. Shane and Brandt actually met then, as Brandt was subbing for another friend at the time. Shane and Brandt had some kind of chemistry at the time but nothing came of it; clearly there was something going on between Brandt and Shelby too.
Shane and Shelby lived a very nomadic existence as children, with their father working as a roadie for a popular band. Shelby is also in the music-adjacent industry and is generally a flighty and erratic character. Shane didn’t even know Shelby was expecting, but suddenly she is introducing him to a baby – and then immediately leaving to join a tour in Canada.
Not knowing what to do, Shane locates Brandt, the named father on Jewel’s birth certificate, and drives to him to introduce the child to her dad. At first Brandt is in denial about Jewel’s parentage but this is quickly put to rest. Apparently the condom failed during the one encounter between Shelby and Brandt – which happened prior to him meeting Shane, it must be said. (I was implicit that had Brandt met Shane first Shelby would not have had a look in – but then of course, Jewel would not exist).
Even with the massive shock of sudden parenthood, Brandt takes Jewel mostly in his stride. There is not a lot of angsting about things and he appears to adapt to fatherhood easily and quickly. It helps that Shane stays to help look after Jewel but even so, for a guy who had no idea about babies, he does take to it like a duck to water.
Brandt has little experience with family. He was raised in the foster system, bouncing from one place to another until he aged out of the system. He also has few roots and on the face of things he’s not looking for any kind of commitment. It turns out however that a family is what he’s been longing for all his life.
The romance between Brandt and Shane is not one of convenience. Irrespective of baby Jewel, there is an underlying attraction and proximity pretty much does the rest to bring things along.
Even though Shelby is characterised as irresponsible and flakey, she is not overly demonised in the book, which I appreciated. In fact, Brandt is very sympathetic and wonders if she’s unwell, perhaps with post-natal depression. He’s not one to knee-jerk into anger or blame. In the circumstances it was pretty remarkable actually. He does however take steps to protect Jewel legally which was only sensible but it was never punitive against Shelby.
One of the barriers which was never addressed in the book was simply that Brandt had had sex with Shelby and Shelby is Shane’s sister. Which, ew. Shane was at one point worried about being a second choice but I’d have liked the actual elephant in the room to be addressed in some way. That said, I chose to put my metaphorical fingers in my ears and sing “la la la” and move on because if I thought about it… ew.
There was little keeping Shane and Brandt apart; Shane wondered how he could have a music career and Brandt but in the end it wasn’t as complicated as he feared. It wasn’t so much that there was no conflict; rather that there was a path for them which didn’t require any special contortions.
I did wonder if there were going to be any legal protections for Shane’s relationship with Jewel if something happened to Brandt for example (and let’s face it, Brandt does have a dangerous job) but that wasn’t raised in the epilogue.
I don’t mind books which feature babies in general terms, though I know plenty of readers and listeners who aren’t fans. Here, Jewel was neither the perfect baby or an evil demon but it did feel that these two coped with new parenthood better than most (better than I did I think!). Still, it wasn’t entirely a sparkly bed of roses either which I appreciated.
Ultimately I believed in the connection between Shane and Brandt as a separate thing to their relationship with the baby. The baby put them in proximity but that was really the only part Jewel played in their romance.
Iggy Toma narrates with his usual skill and empathy. Brandt had a different enough voice that he was easy to tell apart from Shane (for most of the book Jewel is too young to talk) and I like his female character voices, which are softened and don’t try too hard.
I did spot a couple of errors where Brandt’s name was used instead of Shane’s and vice versa but otherwise, the listen was error free and smooth sailing.
There wasn’t any firefighting in the book; it’s a domestic romance rather than a suspenseful listen, but it was entertaining and kept me engaged for the duration.
Kaetrin
Buy Up in Smoke by Annabeth Albert on Amazon
I liked this one, too – I think I gave the story the same grade :)
Same grade from me, too. I agree with what you’ve said here. The fact that Brandt was with Shelby and then Shane doesn’t bother me much, especially since it was a very casual, one night thing. In Marley Valentine’s Without You, the one protagonist was the long time boyfriend of the the other protagonist’s deceased brother. This was an easier sell.
I thought the taking care of the bay was pretty accurate, with sleepless nights and interrupted plans. However, it still felt somewhat easier than real life in my experience. Perhaps because both Shane and Brandt took to it easily. It helped that the author had Shane reading parenting books a lot.
I wanted some clarification about Shane’s legal position, as well. The epilogue mentioned the ring on his finger, but even if they married Shane would have to adopt Jewel, I think, and Shelby would have to give up all parenting rights. Maybe??
I think that’s how it would work over here in terms of adoption – not sure how it works in the US though. I forgot to say in my response that I didn’t have a problem with Brandt/Shelby either – it was just one night and obviously wasn’t a big thing for either of them despite the result!
Maybe it’s just me then. But thinking about someone who had also slept with my brother, even if only for one night would kind of ick me out. LOL