Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center Cassie is a decorated firefighter in Austin TX. The book opens up with her receiving a medal of valor, and at the award ceremony a city councilman who she apparently has a terrible history with was the one presenting her the award. He secretly groped her, and she turned around and beat him over the head with her award, right in front of everyone. As you can imagine this earned her a suspension. Right around the time her suspension kicked in her mom called her from Massachusetts. It would seem that Mom walked out on her and her dad when she was 16, and she’s been pissed about it ever since. Mom has some medical issues and needs some help. She has nothing else going on, so she commits to a year of living in MA with her mom to help her. She gets a job with the local fire station there. It would seem the local station isn’t really psyched about having a woman there, so she has to earn their respect. This is a story of redemption and change. She’s convinced she will hate her mother for the rest of her life, but then she learns to love her again. She’s convinced that she will never meet someone and fall in love, but in Massachusetts she does. She builds herself a new life in a new city and puts all the nasty stuff from her past to bed.
BJ Knapp is the author of Beside the Music, available for purchase here. Please sign up for the Backstage with BJ Knapp mailing list to get updates on events, signings, dog pictures and so much more.