PROTECTOR (The Protectors 1.5) by Nancy Northcott- a review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date March 5, 2013

When firefighter and paramedic Edie Lang arrives to battle a wildfire in southeast Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp, she’s dismayed to encounter the man who ruined her life in just one night. Their reunion doesn’t make helicopter pilot Josh Campbell any happier than Edie is. Despite their efforts to ignore each other, the sparks between them have not diminished, but neither intends to let them flare again.

When one of them is gravely injured, the two discover their passion runs deeper than either of them could have imagined and they have Dr. Stefan Harper to thank for that chance.

Dr. Harper is happy to have given the couple a second chance, but realizes through Josh and Edie, as well as his good friends Val and Griff, that what’s missing from his life is love

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REVIEW: PROTECTOR is a short novella in Nancy Northcott’s The Protector’s series focusing on a magical group of protectors and guardians known as the Mage. The Mage are a gifted species of people who source their power from the elements but their enemies-the ghouls-suck the life force and power from the mage to survive. In PROTECTOR the ghouls, with the help of mage power, have developed a weapon that connects with the mage and in doing so, will slowly deplete their victim until nothing is left.

In PROTECTOR firefighter Edie Lang and pilot Josh Campbell battle forest fires as well as each other in a struggle with life and death. Returning from a recent fire, both will find themselves weakened and unable to remember certain aspects of their latest job. It is only when they begin to piece together their memories do they uncover a possible cause to their shared illness and loss of power.

Josh and Edie have a past-one that is mired in miscommunication and Josh’s reluctance to accept Edie as a woman capable of fighting fires. His worry and need to protect carries onto the job when he is unable to separate the woman that he loves from the fire fighter entering dangerous territory. As well as battling the unknown cause of their loss of power, Josh and Edie battle each other in a test of wills.

PROTECTOR is a welcome storyline that leads into Nancy’s next instalment in The Protector series. Dr.Stefan Harper is the resident Mage physician who has been unable to extinguish the memories of the woman he had given up years before, and in Protector, there is a build up to his story. Protector is a fast paced, interesting storyline about two strong willed and capable heroes, who have issues of control when it involves the other. When it looks likes neither is willing to compromise, one must step forward and relinquish his need to protect above all else.

Reading Order
1. Renegade (November 2012)
2. Protector (March 2013)
3. Guardian (July 2013)

Copy supplied by the publisher through Netgalley.

Reviewed by Sandy

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Nancy and Marissa have offered a deleted scene and some background information on the heroine of PROTECTOR

DELETED SCENE from PROTECTOR by Nancy Northcott

Wildland fire plays an important role in Nancy Northcott’s novella, Protector.  Firefighter Edie Lang and helicopter pilot Josh Campbell almost had a one-night stand three years ago, but Josh backed away.  Now they’ve met again while fighting a fire in Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp.

This scene would have come near the end of the story.

Edie drove the Pulaski’s hoe blade in the sandy, grassy soil and pulled.  She frowned into the trench she and her hotshot crewmages had dug, making sure it was clear of plants and flammable debris.  Focus was critical, but the job didn’t distract her enough, today, to get her mind off Josh.  Or the woman he’d stood so close to in the chow line.

Fresh tears stung her eyes. Scowling, she blinked them back.  Idiot.  Stupid, overly sensitive, girlish idiot.  Josh has a right to flirt if he wants to. Maybe he hadn’t been, but the way he and that woman–that very pretty woman–stood so close had seemed like flirting.

His behavior was officially no longer her problem.  Once this fire was out and the various crews working it went their separate ways, she wouldn’t see him again.

So what if his muscular build, light brown hair and smiling hazel eyes were seared into her heart?  She could cope.  She was good at coping.

At least now she’d made the hole fourteen inches deep, down to pure soil.  She moved right and started again.  They had to stop the fire from jumping out of the peat and into this sandy area with its oily saw palmetto ground cover and slash pines.  Fire would devour this stuff like a kid with candy, racing through it and toward the houses near the road.

“Edie?”  The voice belonged to Jenny Martin, one of the two other women on the Three Pines Hotshots crew.  The tall brunette peered into Edie’s face.  “You okay?”

“Yeah.”  Edie kept her focus on the sandy soil she was turning.  “Smoke’s bothering my eyes.”

Jenny dug her own Pulaski into the ground.  “You sure it’s smoke, not Captain Gorgeous in the flight suit?  I saw the way you looked at him.”

Busted.  Edie sighed.  “Jenn, it’s confusing.”

At least the guys taking down pines wouldn’t hear them over the growl of their chainsaws.

“Maybe,” Jenny said, “but he watched you walk away, and he didn’t look happy.”

That was some comfort but not much.  “Unfortunately, he’s not unhappy enough to do anything about it.”

Shaking her head, Edie stretched.  “That should do it here.  Let’s see if they need us to help take down trees.  I’m in the mood to watch things crash.”

“Oh, crap!”

Edie barely heard Jenny over a sudden roar.  The dry trees to their left were crowning, fire rushing up the trunks and spitting out debris.   At the same time, the peaty ground fifty yards away erupted in flame.

Hell.  Fire could travel underground for long distances and erupt in peat that had seemed clear.

Edie’s eyes met Jenny’s in agreement.  They had to fall back, and fast.

The two women grabbed their gear and ran for the road, only to find the flames roaring on either side of it.  They and the two men nearest them were cut off

Edie set her jaw.  Her magic could hold back the flames for a while, but only that.  And the super-heated gases in the air were a problem all on their own.  The hotshots needed a helicopter pickup, and fast.

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Character Profile: Edie Lang
Protector by Nancy Northcott

Wildland fire plays an important role in Nancy Northcott’s novella, Protector. Firefighter Edie Lang and helicopter pilot Josh Campbell almost had a one-night stand three years ago, but Josh backed away. Now they’ve met again while fighting a fire in Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp.

Edie is the woman Josh could’ve loved but lost. Or, as Edie would put it, she’s the woman he chickened out on.

Of medium height, blue-eyed and with blonde hair she keeps short during fire seasons, she’s a wildland firefighter. Edie and Josh met when they worked on the same helicopter-based firefighting crew in Wyoming. Edie left that job to join the Three Pines Interagency Hotshot Crew out of Ft. Collins, Colorado.

A love of the outdoors drew Edie to wildland firefighting. She enjoys hiking in the wilderness.

Here’s a look at Edie writing an email to her mom:

“Don’t know how long we’ll be here in Georgia. The Okefenokee is a peat bog, and drought has left a lot of that peat exposed as well as making everything easier to burn. And lots of it is.

“I saw somebody I didn’t expect yesterday. That guy I told you about, the helicopter pilot in Wyoming, is here. I don’t know where he’s working now, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t think I’ll have to deal with him.”

Edie frowned at the screen. She’d better not have to deal with him. Josh was as good-looking as ever, with that killer smile, light brown hair, and drool-worthy bod. But three years of not seeing him killed the irritation and, yes, okay, hurt of the night that almost was.

Of course he’d had to answer his pager, make that emergency drop of retardant on the fire. But no one had forced him to say he’d find her when he finished. And he shouldn’t have said it if he wasn’t going to do it.

So no, she wouldn’t deal with Josh if she could possibly avoid it.