From Amazon.com
New York born and bred, Julia Bishop has no warning that spending the summer counseling troubled teens in Montana will change her life forever. Happily in love with smoke jumper and musician Ed Tully, she looks forward to spending the summer weekends with him in Missoula and is stunned and disturbed by the instant connection she feels to his best friend, Connor Ford. Connor, a Montana rancher and smoke jumper, loves fighting fires almost as much as he loves photography, and before the summer is barely started, he loves Julia Bishop just as deeply. The bond between the three is strong but the work of a smoke jumper is fraught with danger and the trio soon face death by fire. Survival changes their lives forever and places them on paths that divide Julia, Ed, and Connor just as surely as their individual journeys bind them irrevocably together.
The Smoke Jumper is a tale of loyalty and guilt, honor and selfless love, and the human cost of choices made.
--Lois Faye Dyer
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
With fists over their hearts, best friends Connor Ford and Ed Tully shout out "hearts of fire" before parachuting into devastating forest fires to extinguish them. Working side by side in life-threatening circumstances, this unlikely pair (Connor is a Montana cowboy and freelance photographer; Ed is a Chicago musician and would-be playwright) bond through their summer job. Ed's girlfriend, Julia, counsels troubled teens in the Montana wilderness and, though neither one acknowledged it, when Connor and Julia met sparks flew. All three of their lives change irreparably when Julia is trapped in a raging forest fire. Ed becomes blinded during the rescue, and Connor saves Julia. Julia marries Ed out of a sense of responsibility, and a frustrated Connor leaves for years to travel the globe as a war photographer. Although it sounds like an extravagant soap opera, and occasionally feels that way, Evans's (The Horse Whisperer and The Loop) latest novel is about more than just a complicated love triangle. From its opening line, "The important things in life always happen by accident," this is a tale of fate and the search for happiness and self-fulfillment. Conger's strong, clear reading has an edge accentuating the danger of Connor's life, yet at the same time his voice is a source of integrity and calm that anchors the story. Simultaneous release with the Delacorte hardcover.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.