Kate Meader has garnered quite a few good grades for her contemporary romances here at AAR, but I’m afraid that I found her latest book, Down in Flames, just about average. The romance between a newly-out hockey star and a probationary firefighter with a chequered past is well-written, but there’s nothing new here and the characters are pretty bland. It’s also one of those m/m books where you could switch out either of the protagonists for a female character with very little trouble and it would make no real difference to the story.

The two leads – Jude Torres and Hudson Grey – meet in the short prequel – White Hot Hookup – when a very nervous and not-yet-out Hudson decides it’s time to get rid of his V-card and swipes right to set it up. The gorgeous, inked, built guy who knocks on his door is something out of Hudson’s fantasies; the sex is fantastic and everything he’d dreamed of, but Jude is a one-and-done kinda guy, and one amazing night is all he’s offering. Over the next couple of weeks however, they start messaging each other on the app, just to chat, and despite Jude’s aversion to repeats, they arrange to hook-up again. Before they can get that far though, a chance meeting sends Hudson into a panic (he’s with a teammate and worries about being outed); the planned hook-up never happens and Hudson doesn’t respond to any of Jude’s messages – he’s deleted his profile from the app. A couple of weeks later, Jude sees a post on Instagram in which Hudson announces he’s gay. It’s bittersweet, but Jude is glad he’s felt able to come out at last.

Jude and Hudson don’t see each other for almost a year. In the intervening time, Jude has continued getting his life back on track following a few years when he went completely off the rails, and Hudson has transferred from his old team in Atlanta to the Chicago Rebels. Their meeting here is certainly an unusual one; Jude and some of his colleagues from Engine 6 – where he’s a probationary firefighter – are doing the annual Polar Plunge for charity, and he sees someone in the water who looks like he’s in trouble. He’s making his way over but is beaten to it by someone else – Hudson Grey. Together, they get the other man back to the shore, but before they can do little more than acknowledge each other, Hudson leaves.

The guy Jude and Hudson hauled out of the freezing water – is the PR guy for the Rebels, and it’s his idea that they should get Jude in for a photo op with Hudson after Hudson is chosen by the NHL for a big campaign that focuses on new players. Hudson decides to go to see Jude at the station to apologise for blanking and running out on him, but their meeting doesn’t go well and both jump to unwarranted conclusions – Jude decides Hudson is ashamed of him and won’t want people to know they already ‘know’ each other (or how) and Hudson thinks Jude is judging him for his inexperience – and honestly, I was ready to close the book right there. Fortunately though, the misunderstandings are not allowed to drag on; Jude and Hudson clear the air, and Hudson surprises Jude by asking if he’d be able to give him some recommendations for places he can meet people – guys who might be interested in more than just hooking up. Jude is stunned by the request and then conflicted; the thought of Hudson with someone else is deeply disturbing, but he doesn’t do relationships – he’s “here for a good time, not a long time” – and even if he did, he’s absolutely not the guy for someone like Hudson Grey.

Somehow though, he can’t stop thinking about Hudson or wanting to spend time with him, and a friendship – laden with undertones of longing and attraction – develops between them and they start hanging out together. I liked this phase of the story and their relationship is nicely built, although I didn’t like Jude’s determination to ‘protect’ Hudson from men who (in his opinion) aren’t right for him. He’s a six-foot-something muscle-bound hockey player, not a diminutive damsel in distress!

There’s minimal conflict in the story, and what there is arises mostly as a result of Jude’s lack of self-esteem. A few years before, he was a wild party-boy – drink, drugs, lots and lots of sex – and his many bad choices led to his almost destroying some of his strongest friendships. He’s turned things around now, thanks to the helping hand offered by another good friend, Sam; he loves his job and is doing well, but he can’t help believing that all the shit he pulled back then means he’s nowhere near good enough for someone like Hudson, a clean-cut, clean-living guy with a pristine reputation to uphold.

Hudson has some anxiety issues – a panic attack is what initially caused him to ghost Jude all those months ago – which he mostly deals with himself (through breathing exercises) because he’s terrified that if he seeks medical help, he’ll be benched. He’s determined to do better though – by Jude and by himself – and I liked seeing him growing in confidence and coming into his own over the course of the story.

Of course, Jude’s past comes back to bite him in the arse towards the end of the book, but it happens so late that there’s never any sense that the HEA might be hanging in the balance. The way it plays out is very realistic, especially in these days of fast moving social media and viral videos, but in terms of the romance, it’s just a case of waiting for Jude to come to his senses and realise that he’s not the fuck-up he was a few years ago and that he really does deserve to be happy and loved.

Down in Flames is one of those books that’s neither good nor bad – it just… is. The characters are nice but basically unmemorable; Jude’s backstory plays a fairly large role in the story, but Hudson is quite bland – he’s gorgeous, he plays hockey, he has anxiety issues – and that’s basically all there is to know about him. The sex scenes are well written, but I skipped most of them after the first couple because they don’t have much to add to the story.

The blurb for Down in Flames trumpets “a brand new MM standalone” but according to Goodreads, it’s book two in the Hot in Chicago Rookies series, so I’m guessing “standalone” here means it’s the only queer romance in the set. In addition, the series is a kind of crossover between the Chicago Rebels (hockey) series and the Hot in Chicago (firefighters) series; there are LOTS of cameos from characters who I’m guessing got their HEAs in those books; they mostly just pop in and out and don’t carry any of the main storylines, but it does mean there are loads of names thrown around and I sometimes struggled to remember who they all were and how they related to each other and the two leads.

I can’t recommend it, but if you fancy a steamy, low-angst story about a firefighter with a shady past and a shy hockey player, Down in Flames might work better for you than it did for me.

Buy it at: Amazon or your local bookshop

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