Taking the Heat
by Kathryn Shay

Liam O'Neil is trying to take care of his troubled seven-year-old son and cocky teenager, and work full time at the family-owned Bailey's Irish Pub. Widowed three years ago, he's ready to date again (at the insistence of his brothers). But his life is in flux, his future unclear, when he meets Sophie Taylor, a female in the Fire Department of New York. A consummate firefighter who was rescued herself by the FDNY when she was ten, she loves her job and her "firefighter family." Liam's as attracted to her as she to him, which is fun and flirty, until they both start to care about each other. Yet she's the last person he can get involved with. His youngest is suffering from abandonment issues and depression, and needs stability. Even when they become involved, both Liam and Sophie know their relationship is doomed. Or is it?

Other Books by Kathryn Shay

Nothing More to Lose

Kathryn Shay's Bio

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 sale, Kathryn has written seventeen books and two online reads for Harlequin, five mainstream contemporary romances for the Berkley Publishing Group, and two online novellas, which Berkley will publish in traditional print format.

She has been quoted in People Magazine, interviewed for The Wall Street Journal, and will be featured in Cosmopolitan magazine as their book excerpt for the December 2003 issue.

Kathryn has become known for her powerful characterizations - fans 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 Romantic Times Bookclub Reviewers Choice Awards, three Holt Medallions, two Desert Quill Awards, the Golden Leaf Award, and several online accolades, including five 5- Heart reviews from The Romance Reader.

Even in light of her writing success, that initial love of teaching has never wavered for Kathryn. She still teaches in 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."