Wild Hearts

What happens when two ice queens collide and neither one melts first?

Narrated by two-time Earphones Award winner Abby Craden, Wild Hearts is a slow burn that earns every degree of its thaw.

Shannon McAllister runs search and rescue in the Colorado mountains with iron discipline and zero patience for small talk. She hasn't let anyone close in five years. She feels everything, which is exactly the problem, so she's made herself untouchable. It's worked so far.

Tess Calder has been hired to decide whether Shannon's job should exist. She's the consultant nobody wants and everybody underestimates, a woman so tightly wound she colour-codes her panty drawer. Tess doesn't do feelings. She does data. Data has never once looked at her the way Shannon McAllister looks at her when she thinks no one's watching.

Two women who've perfected the art of arm's length. One six-month audit that closes the distance whether they're ready or not.

Then a wildfire tears through the mountains, taking every certainty they've clung to with it. Tess has a report to write that could end Shannon's career or wreck her own. Shannon has to decide which terrifies her more: losing her job, or letting someone stay.

Meanwhile, Tess's mother Colette has arrived uninvited, unpacked her crystals, discovered Tess's most private possession, and set her sights on a captivating eighty-three-year-old grandmother named Yaya. You'll either love her or want to lock her in a cupboard. Possibly both.

Wild Hearts features:

• Two guarded women undoing each other in a fresh take on the double ice queen trope
• Forced proximity and workplace tension
• A wildfire rescue that changes everything
• A scene-stealing mother you'll argue about for days
• A dog called Kep who deserves his own book
• Steam that earns its slow burn

About the narrator

Abby Craden has recorded hundreds of audiobooks, winning two Earphones Awards and being named one of AudioFile Magazine's Best Voices of 2012.