Holy motherclucker, Down Deep is a firefighting GEM!

Only my second novel by Kimberly Kincaid, Down Deep is the fourth standalone in the Station Seventeen series, and I loved every page!

Ian Gamble is a firefighter with Station Seventeen, part of Seventeen and the Thirty-third precincts chosen family, but as Kennedy tells him later in the book: maybe one step removed.

Because of Gambles past in the Marine Corps, his time overseas and the damage that does to anyone's mind, he is not able to bring himself any further into the fold.

Kennedy is the manager of the Crooked Angel bar where the majority of the Firefighters, Leo's, and EMT's from Station Seventeen and the Thirty-third precinct hang and a former Northie, resident of the inner city, in Remington, North Carolina. She's good at many things, best of all appearing tougher than she is and avoiding more than the barest of social attachments.

After Gamble helps Kennedy escape a fire set outside the Crooked Angel tensions escalate further when Gamble knows Kennedy saw more than she told police, both are trying to lock down any attraction they are feeling, and Kennedy is trying to keep her kid brother Xander safe.

This book reminds me of probably my favourite Firefighter movie ever, Backdraft, with the tension, a serial arsonist who's lost touch with reality, and bad guys richer than Croesus. Seriously, who has an Aston Martin in the inner city anywhere?

Kimberly's writing in dealing with both Gamble's PTSD and Kennedy's fears was respectful, insightful, and spot on. The action in this book is fast paced, the suspense enough to have me turning pages faster and faster to avoid missing anything, and the sex is HOT (!!!), 5 alarm, sensual not raunchy, but absolutely beautiful!! A full 6 stars for Kincaid's Down Deep!