Heat Exchange by Shannon Stacey

Summary from Amazon:

     Lydia Kincaid's shipping back to Boston, but she's not happy about it. She left to get away from the firefighting community—her father was a firefighter, her brother's a firefighter and, more importantly, her ex is a firefighter. But family is number one and her father needs her help running the pub he bought when he retired. Soon, Lydia finds it hard to resist the familiar comfort and routine, and even harder to resist her brother's handsome friend Aidan.
     Aidan Hunt is a firefighter because of the Kincaid family. He's had the hots for Lydia for years, but if ever a woman was off-limits to him it's her. Aside from being his mentor's daughter, she's his best friend's sister. The ex-wife of a fellow firefighter. But his plan to play it cool until she leaves town again fails, and soon he and Lydia have crossed a line they can't un-cross.
     As Aidan and Lydia's flirtation turns into something more serious, Lydia knows she should be planning her escape. Being a firefighter's wife was the hardest thing she's ever done and she doesn't know if she has the strength to do it again. Aidan can't imagine walking away from Boston Fire—even for Lydia. The job and the brotherhood are his life; but if he wants Lydia in it, he'll have to decide who's first in his heart.

My Thoughts:

     I liked the story for the most part but the main female sometimes needed a good smacking on occasion.  I like Lydia in that she was confident (most of the time) and that she stood up for her sister when no one else really did but sometimes she took some crap (mainly, from her family) that I don’t think she should have or would have “in real life”. 

  My other issue with this story was that things would start to get sexy then like Emeril Lagasse *BAM* it was over (and NOT because the author was trying to keep it clean-ish, that ship had sailed).  If you are going to start some sexy times don’t just rush past them. As they said on Seinfeld, “You don’t ‘yada-yada’ sex!”

     This is not to say that I didn’t like Heat Exchange because I did! The storyline was good and a slightly older woman falling for her younger brother’s best friend is not a plotline you see often, so that was new.  I cannot imagine being in a relationship of any kind with a firefighter as it would be very stressful and hard to handle. 

Coming from a family filled with firefighters I can see where Lydia struggled with her feelings for Aidan, I just wish she had not been so wishy-washy about talking about it. One minute she is a strong, confident woman but the next, not so much. There was an attempt at angst but I never really felt we delved very deep into the feelings enough to really feel all that bad for Lydia.

     Overall, I liked the characters, the fresh plot line, and I think that this series has a lot of potential.  I’m hoping that in the next installment that there are a little bit deeper dives into feelings and less wishy-washy females.

3/5 Stars

"Listen to this. Marcy comes over and she tells me that her ex-boyfriend was over late last night and 'yada yada yada I'm really tired today.' You don't think she'd yada yada sex?"

"I've yada yada'd sex."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I met this lawyer, we went out to dinner, I had the lobster bisque, we went back to my place, yada yada yada, I never heard from him again."

"But you yada yada'd over the best part."

"No, I mentioned the bisque."

- George, Elaine, and Jerry, in "The Yada Yada"