Review of ‘Three Alarm Response’ by Erin Dutton

I’m a sucker for lesbian women in uniform books so this was a must-read for me. While this is not my favorite by Dutton, it still was a pretty good read. There were a few things I struggled with, but there were also parts I really liked.

While this is a book of three novellas, this is not the normal novella collection you might expect. Actually, what Dutton did here was quite clever and it made this read more enjoyable for me. What Dutton did is she took a major event, which required first responders, and put all three novellas around it. Story one is before and leading up to the event, story two is during the event, and the final story is what happens after. So by doing it this way was like reading one big story instead of just three random stories. The three stories focus on a group of women that are friends and each book stars a different friend finding love while doing their jobs. And because it is about a group of friends, you will see the characters from the first novella appear in the second and so on. It was a great idea and a fun way to do novellas.

I also really enjoyed how each story was about different types of first responders. The first was a firefighter, the second a police officer, and the third a paramedic. My favorite story of all was the second one ‘Pushed’. It was the most exciting taking place in the middle of the big event and was starring the police officer. It wasn’t only that it was the most exciting, it was also sweet. I really liked both mains and instantly thought they had good chemistry with each other. Since these are novellas the relationships move pretty fast, but I completely believed in these two as a possible couple.

While there was a lot I liked here, I did have some bumps. The biggest was that in the first and third stories, one of the mains was an asshole. The firefighter in the first book is worse than the paramedic in story three. I have a hard time trusting people who don’t like animals for one, but for two her mouth just kept running, making her very unappealing. She was a total jerk for more than half the story. Now, I must admit in both stories the jerk characters had pretty much won me over by the end, but just barely. It is hard for me with a story so short, to take so long to like the main character. I don’t think it is a surprise that the story I loved the most had two very likable main characters. Anyway, the last little bump is that some of the stories the romance moved very quickly. Again, I get it since these are novellas. But “I like you”, “let’s have sex”, and now “I love you”, almost right in a row is a bit quick for me personally.

While this did have some bumps, it was entertaining and kept my attention. This was such a clever way to do novellas that I would love to see other authors try this. If you are like me and love some first responders’ stories, you might just enjoy this too. 3.50 Stars.

An ARC was given to me for an honest review.