How To Tame a Wild Fireman by Jennifer Bernard

Narrated by Hilary Huber

The eponymous fireman in How To Tame a Wild Fireman is Patrick “Psycho” Callahan. Patrick is a daredevil and adrenaline junkie whose father, Patrick “Big Dog” Callahan, was briefly the Governor of that state. Patrick grew up on the big family ranch just outside of Loveless, Nevada, with his parents, younger brother Liam (who is deaf and mildly autistic*), and his (even) younger sister Megan.

Liam’s best friend at school was Lara Nelson and they used to hang out with Patrick all the time, until an accident fractured Patrick’s family. Ten years have passed and Patrick is sent back to Loveless to help with a large wildfire (we call them bushfires over here by the way). He is surprised and delighted to find Lara is in town as well.

Lara has been away for ten years too. After the death of her parents in a car accident, Lara lived with her bohemian Aunt Tam who ran The Haven for Sexual and Spiritual Healing. Always embarrassed by this, she felt alienated and isolated. Both outcasts for different reasons, Lara and Liam bonded in shared pain.

Lara is now a doctor in San Diego but when Aunt Tam dies, she leaves the Haven to Lara. Lara returns to Loveless to sort out the Haven and the “Goddesses” (the Haven’s employees). Patrick and Lara hook up, fall in love, sort out the Haven, Big Dog, and reconcile Patrick with his family. There’s also a llama with co-dependency issues.

While I enjoyed the interaction between Patrick and Lara, I didn’t find anything particularly new or exciting about the story. It was okay, perhaps a little better – enjoyable enough without being anything earth-shattering or ground-breaking.

Listening to a sample of Hillary Huber’s narration influenced me to choose this book for review. Ms. Huber (who is new to me) has a pleasant, deepish voice (reminiscent in some ways of Anna Fields) and I was hopeful that she could perform a believable male tone. And she can. Unfortunately, she didn’t use the best of her male voices for Patrick. He was rendered more lightly – both in pitch and vibe (the latter did suit him, the former I’m not so sure about. Often he sounded kind of whiny). It was okay and parts of it were even good, but it wasn’t what I’d hoped for.

That said, Lara was well depicted, as were the other characters and I especially thought Ms. Huber nailed the secondary character (and fellow San Gabriel fire-fighter), Vader. Once the Goddesses were through with him, he was very in touch with his feelings and the results were kind of hilarious.

I’d certainly like to try Ms. Huber’s stylings again because I think she delivered the overall tone of the story and the emotions very well. I can as easily imagine her narrating a very light-hearted funny book as a heavier, darker story.

I found myself a little bored at times during the listen, but I think that was more due the story than the narration. Overall, I’d say How To Tame a Wild Fireman is okay and enjoyable enough – maybe good for a holiday/beach listen?

*This is the description given in the book. I’m not entirely clear on exactly what it means.

Kaetrin

Narration:  B-

Book Content:  C+

Steam Factor:  Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence:  Minimal

Genre:  Contemporary Romance

Publisher:  Harper Audio

How to Tame a Wild Fireman was provided to AudioGals for review by Harper Audio.