The honest reason I picked up this book was because I have a great respect and admiration for Smoke Jumpers and Forest Service firefighters. I even met a few that were from Missoula, which the Smoke Jumper base in the book is. Anyways, so now you know what first got me to buy the book and read it but it didn't play a significant part in the storyline. In fact this story was very different than what I had expected, in a good way. I will be completely honest and say that I was not at all impressed by the editing/grammar flaws in this book. The editing on a few parts was so bad that a complete sentence did not even make much sense and I would have to read it a few times to figure out what it was suppose to mean.Also there are certain speech parts in the book that give away the author's own background. For example the characters are from Kentucky, Boston and Montana and yet a few lines had me thinking "that doesn't sound very country or Bostonian to me". The author, Nicholas Evans is from London/Devon, England. So as I was reading and a few of these more proper or more poised lines showed up I would be a little confused. Only after I read the book did I find out about the author and it made more sense. With all of that said though, I still am giving this book 5 stars! Why? Because the story was amazing. From the time I picked up this book, I could not put it down. Literally I did not even barely leave my room because I didn't want to set the book down and when I did have to set it down it was very briefly (10 minutes tops). The story actually takes you through so much of the characters lives that it pulled me so close to each character and I found all of them to have endearing qualities. The story completely engulfed my attention and I had no choice but to continue because I had to know what was going to happen. The story is almost to hard for me to put in to words. There is a love triangle of some sort so I did list this book on my romance shelf BUT it is so much more than that. It's about life in many ways. It opens up with a quick background into a few of the characters, then moves on to what drew them all together. As the plot and characters develop the story itself is more about the personal journey of the characters. Fighting fires is a very brief part of it and is really only a lead into a more delicious part of the plot. Inside the story was heartbreak, pain, death, suffering, love, joy, happiness and tough choices. Smoke Jumpers is a book that has so much in it that I could not help but be emotionally invested in the story and in the characters. I would recommend this book to anyone but I would also have to let them know of the two flaws that I have previously pointed out. Normally just one of those flaws would be enough for me to not enjoy or like a book but as I said the actual story itself was the reason I fell in love with this book.
In the mountains of Montana, Connor Ford spends every fire season smoke jumping with his best friend Ed Tully. There is little that Connor cares about more than Ed, so when Ed's girlfriend Julia arrives and Connor finds himself instantly in love with her, he is determined to tamp down his feelings and focus on his happiness for his friend. But in order to hide his feelings for Julia, he has to run further and further, until he has run so long and so far, that the friends have disappeared from each other's lives entirely.This book had me hooked from the beginning, and moving through the pages rapidly to see what would happen. It was particularly engaging in that it flitted well between several people’s perspectives, weaving their lives together as it went. Many books don’t do that well and it becomes jarring and even annoying, but it was done wonderfully in this novel. It did take me a long time to become invested in the characters, however. Sometimes they felt unrealistic, particularly in their bantering, and it frequently felt like the dialogue was just something made up by an author rather than something people would actually say. And I didn’t think their lives were particularly interesting in parts I and II. In Part III, however, I was hooked. Connor’s choices were so tragic and yet so understandable, as a loyal friend who was trying, always throughout the book, to do the right thing. And Julia’s were realistic and understandable as well, and by the end of the book I felt that both characters had become realistic and interesting. It was a sad, realistic, and also a beautiful romance. The setting and situation of the last few chapters were extremely thought provoking, and I kept marveling how their lives had changed so drastically, and yet, how the choices that led them to that place were all entirely natural and fit well with the story.
What do You think about The Smoke Jumper (2002)?
In Nicholas Evans's The Smoke Jumper, he wrote such an emotional and heart-warming eco-thriller than ever before. For Connor Ford, he was a smoke jumper who saved Julia Bishop's life. He fell in love with her, when she was with fellow smoke jumper, Ed Tully, his best friend. That have created an awkward love triangle, since she loved both of them, until she had to choose between the two of them after a fiery tragedy happened in Montana. After the fire, he chose a life that didn't bring him happiness, until he was reunited with Julia with a new chance to be with her in the end.
—Kristen
This story started out promising. A cute romance develops between two likeable characters and then a smokin hot "complication" gets introduced. From there it went all down hill. There needed to be more of everything, more passion, more tension, and more heartache. I found what I was reading to be less than gripping and I always found a reason to do something else other than read it. This story is about a blind man's wife falling in love with his best friend. How can you bore your readers with a plot like that??? Not only was I bored, but the ending was just awful! Nicholas Evans made his reader yearn for a relationship between characters that was wrong. I wanted the best friend to get the girl, but how could I wish such a betrayal on a blind man who loved and needed his wife and was so inspirational? I didn't feel good about it. I wanted something to happen to make the husband less likeable, or I wanted him to leave and find a woman who could really love him back the way he deserved. Instead the husband dies and the best friend comes in and takes his place. Was this the ending I was rooting for? Is that suppose to be a happy ending? I thought it was awful. I felt like the author wanted me to be happy the husband died. How horrible.
—Christina White
This book has everything I love in a story: slightly dangerous occupations (my writing regularly features EMS and military characters). War and chaos. A handsome, brooding male character. A love triangle ... and a happy ending (I'm a sucker for those). Evans did a masterful job of using traumatic events and showing how the characters develop because of (or in spite of) them. The 'voice' of each was authentic and even though there were four points of view (telling their stories) I didn't have any moments of confusion like I have in other books. The only weakness: the purpose of the moose-on-fire imagery was unclear to me, other than a vague notion of significance.
—Tracey Cramer-Kelly
