A sweet romance about a Fire Marshal, a candy store owner, and her 13-year-old son who are brought together by the damaging role fire has played in their lives.

Chad Owens, the fire marshal, lost a loved one to fire 8 years ago and has shut down emotionally since that time. He is drawn out of this, and finds his own faith, when he begins to work with Nick Nelworth and is exposed to Nick's mom, Jeannie. Jeannie and Nick lost her husband/ his dad in a fiery car accident and more recently, lost their home to a fire caused by faulty wiring.

It has been a good long time since I rated a Harlequin over 2 stars. For the first time in a long time I found a book that had believable characters with believable baggage and believable motivations. And not only that, there were no dumb glaring errors of science because the author chose to a) do her homework, and b) adequately skirt the issue to avoid making moronic suppositions that other romance authors do instead of doing their homework.

I liked that Nick was a believable teenager. I liked that Jeannie was desperately trying to rebuild her life after two tragedies and still stay strong for her son. I liked the fact that Chad was willing to do the hard things that Jeannie couldn't. I liked that all three of these characters not only strong in their own ways, but when another character faltered, they were there to help pick them up.

My only real niggle with this book is when Nick hits his tipping point and Jeannie flips out. Don't get me wrong, it's not okay for Nick to have done what he was doing, but Jeannie literally lost her mind thinking Nick turned into a complete delinquent - like he had stolen a car, or mugged a little old lady, or killed the neighbor's cat. In this instance, the reaction didn't fit the crime, so to speak.