Part of Series
Author’s note: the original title of NEVER FAR AWAY was THE FIRE WITHIN. The book has been fully revised and updated and also contains cameos from the Hidden Cove Firefighters She’s a feisty counselor of troubled teens. He’s the fire department psychologist who’s trying to outrun his demons. They clash at every turn. Until one New Year’s Eve encounter changes everything. PTSD plagues Dr. Reed Macauley and he tries to channel the disorder into helping other firefighters with the malady. He keeps the nightmares at bay by distancing himself from his colleagues. But when, in a moment of weakness, he surrenders to Dr. Delaney Shaw’s allure, he finds he can’t put that particular genie back in the bottle. Delaney has fought her attraction to Reed for a year, ever since she met him at workshops and they clashed on philosophies. When he acts on his feelings for her, she won’t let him go. She can help him, she knows she can. Tragedy in the Rockford Fire Department throws them together as they must work side-by-side to help the victims cope. She won’t give up on him, and he won’t give in to her. Will they ever be able to find happiness together? The horrific consequences of PTSD, edgy firefighting scenarios, and an irresistible intimacy of the main characters haunt the pages of this bittersweet firefighter romance. Be sure to follow up with the rest of the Rockford Fire Department Series: FEEL THE HEAT, RISKING IT ALL and CODE OF HONOR and catch up with the Hidden Cove Firefighters series, whose characters appear in all these Rockford books. *** NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Kathryn Shay spent five years riding fire trucks with a large city fire department, eating in their firehouses and interviewing hundreds of America's Bravest.
Author
Kathryn Shay is a lifelong writer. At fifteen, she penned her first 'romance,' a short story about a female newspaper reporter in New York City and her fight to make a name for herself in a world of male journalists - and with one hardheaded editor in particular. Looking back, Kathryn says she should have known then that writing was in her future. But as so often happens, fate sent her detouring down another path. Fully intending to pursue her dream of big city lights and success in the literary world, Kathryn took every creative writing class available at the small private women's college she attended in upstate New York. Instead, other dreams took precedence. She met and subsequently married a wonderful guy who'd attended a neighboring school, then completed her practice teaching, a requirement for the education degree she never intended to use. But says Kathryn, "I fell in love with teaching the first day I was up in front of a class, and knew I was meant to do that." Kathryn went on to build a successful career in the New York state school system, thoroughly enjoying her work with adolescents. But by the early 1990s, she'd again made room in her life for writing. It was then that she submitted her first manuscript to publishers and agents. Despite enduring two years of rejections, she persevered. And on a snowy December afternoon in 1994, Kathryn Shay sold her first book to Harlequin Superromance. Since that first sale, Kathryn has written twenty-one books for Harlequin, nine mainstream contemporary romances for the Berkley Publishing Group, and two online novellas, which Berkley then published in traditional print format. Kathryn has become known for her powerful characterizations - readers say they feel they know the people in her books - and her heart-wrenching, emotional writing (her favorite comments are that fans cried while reading her books or stayed up late to finish them). In testament to her skill, the author has won five RT BookClub Magazine Reviewers Choice Awards, three Holt Medallions, two Desert Quill Awards, the Golden Leaf Award, and several online accolades. Even in light of her writing success, that initial love of teaching never wavered for Kathryn. She finished out her teaching career in 2004, retiring from the same school where her career began. These days, she lives in upstate New York with her husband and two children. "My life is very full," she reports, "but very happy. I consider myself fortunate to have been able to pursue and achieve my dreams."
