Where There’s Smoke...

Heroes of Port Dale, Book 7

By: Romeo Alexander

Narrated by: Keith Smith

Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

Matt: I’m proud to be a Port Dale firefighter, but it isn’t all excitement and sitting around eating homemade meals. It’s also dealing with your work “family” in ways you never expected.

I love my real family, and I love my work “family”. Well, most of them. My “brothers” at the fire station are exactly what I need at work, but I wasn’t expecting to be asked out by my homophobic brother’s actual brother. I also wasn’t expecting how well it would work out or where it would lead us. I certainly didn’t expect we’d get caught.

Ethan: Tossed out by the Corps on medical grounds, I have no idea what to expect from civilian life. I’ve got my brother Keith, who’s been everything - brother, friend, parent. Yet, when I stumble across his fellow firefighter Matt, I find myself in a whole new world.

Matt is sweet, kind, and forgiving, everything my brother is not, especially when it comes to being gay. Matt is hot. He’s everything I need, and I know I can’t hide my true self forever.

For Matt and Ethan, there’s fiery instant attraction, but can they get over family hurdles? When gay-hating Keith catches them kissing at work, sparks fly! Can the fire between them be rekindled? Or is it dead forever?

©2021 Romeo Alexander (P)2021 Books Unite People, LLC

Adorable story

The story flowed effortlessly. I can always get over the Midwestern/Canadian pronunciation of "sorry," but the one minor annoyance was the pronunciation of "cacophony."

... There's Fire!

Firefighter meets Former Marine who also happens to be his Homophobic co-workers not so little brother!

HOT!

Have you ever had that one co-worker who you try to avoid? What if that co-worker has a hot as hell brother who's in the closet?
This is a story that is full of emotions and pulls your heart in all directions. This is one book you don't want to miss!

Complicated family relations 🤗

Sweet & hot firefighter, really good-natured but would snap under the pressure of caring for his injured father and the attack of a homophobic coworker who is also the brother of his boyfriend, sexy ex-marine, brave but still hiding his orientation from said brother who raised him... complicated, but really good! 😉

When Ethan meets Matt

Plot: Firemen, former Marine, coming out of the closet, slice-of-life
Feels: Heart-warming and heart-breaking
Drama: Ethan's brother, Keith’s homophobia; Matt’s father’s mental health
Heat: 3/5
Characters: I love Romeo Alexander’s embarrassingly supportive fathers and Matt’s father definitely is adorably supportive, Ethan cowers a bit too much under his homophobic brother
Pacing: The story meanders a bit in the middle, but overall good flow
Length: Ok
Ending: HEA
Performance: Conversational tone and narration, I liked Ethan’s voice [and Theo’s], but feel Matt’s was too affected

prejudices

I hate that homophobia rears its ugly head and the side effects are far reaching. It seems like Keith hasn't learned a thing and has no tolerance for gay people. I liked that Ethan and Matt had the strength to weather the storm and the support of most of the firehouse. A great story I enjoyed. The narrator did a good job bringing it to life.

Sweet Entry, Horrifying Naration

All of the books in this series are short and sweet, but are almost ruined by the embarrassingly bad performance by this performer. It’s so bad; poor pronunciation, odd pauses, no emotion in some places, incorrect emotion in others. It’s a shame this authors sweet characters are butchered by this performance. The story wasn’t my favorite of the series but I loved checking in on the world. But I can’t recommend this book. Hearing an audiobook read by a seemingly 18 year old who can barely read it seems, is in a rotator for a professional production. Especially one that you pay for.

I finished it

This was given to me for an honest review so that’s what I’m going to give. The story wasn’t bad, it’s why I’m giving the overall of 3 stars. But the narrator was so bad he took any levity or genuine feelings out of it. Beyond the mispronunciation of words his cadence was all off and made diving in & loosing the world around you almost impossible.

On the positive side, I did finish the story. I will happily DNF & move on. But I did give this my all. The writing wasn’t terrible, and I honestly wonder how I would feel about it if I had read it instead of listened to it.

My suggestion to anyone interested in this trope is to buy it in your kindle and give it a read.