Firefighters are hot!

Cowboys, Navy SEALS, Vikings and Firefighters.  Those are my go to heart throbs.  Hmmm, none of my current WIPs have any of these boys in them.  I'm gonna have to remedy that.  (Hey chefs are hot too!)
In the meantime, I'm more than happy to read just about anything with my top four heroes in them.
I've reviewed a cowboy book, a Navy SEAL anthology, I'll go in search of a Viking tale.  Today I have for you, the ever hot - Firefighter. (pun totally intended)

Title: In Too Deep (America's Finest)
Author: Kathryn Shay
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Self Pub (however the author has put up a huge backlist previously pubbed by Harlequin)

Review:
Firefighters Gabe Malvaso and Rachel 'Princess' Wellington are trapped in the basement of a burning building when more than sparks ignite between them.
(Wow, I should write cover blurbs)

I love, love, love that this book (the first in a series) features women firefighters. Yay, girl power! There should be more books out there, like Kathryn Shay's, that feature strong, sensible (yet sensitive) heroines like Rachel. Be gone simpering virgins! Now is the era of the true heroine!
(I love exclamation marks!)

The author did a nice job of building up the characters and the tension between them (especially after the fire) in such a short space.  That's hard to do in novellas.
I had a bit of a hard time believing in the no good journalist/blogger villain and her agenda.  I needed some reasoning behind her smear campaign of the fire department and I didn't get it.  She was the bad guy just for the sake of being a bad guy. Reminded me of the Tea Party.
I did however love the Fire Belles solution to combating their personal Snidely Whiplash.  I even searched the web afterwards in hopes of finding an actual blog by women firefighters.  There are quite a few auxillary groups supporting local fire stations called Fire Belles, but I didn't find anything by or about women in the FD.  I'm gonna keep looking though.

My wish for this story would be a little bit stronger ending.
Yes, I understand this one is on offer to entice me to read the rest of the series, but I still would be drawn in with a more clear cut HEA or even an HFN for this couple.  It comes close, but I wanted just a little bit more clarity of how these two are really going to make things work after all their tribulations (which had me nail biting wondering how the author was going to actually get them together.)

My Recommendations:
This is totally worth the one-click.  I might even think about delving into the boxed set series that follows.
I give this one four stars