Katherine Center Things You Save in a Fire A Wonderful Drama Filled with Emotion!

A Story of Heroes, Pranksters, and the Bonding of  Firefighters and Paramedics! 


Things You Save in a Fire by author Katherine Center is a heart-touching book which had me feeling a wide range of emotions. Once I started reading the book, I could not put it down or stop until I had finished the book. Cassie Hanwell is a firefighter in Austin, Texas who is receiving an award for valor. She did not plan the beat the crap out of City Councilman Heath Thompson, but when he grabbed her bottom as he presented her plaque she just could not help herself! This episode is so funny but it leads the way to understand a very serious event which happened to Cassie on the night of her sixteenth birthday. Her mother left Cassie and her father for another man on the afternoon of Cassie's birthday and later that night a horrible thing happened to change her life forever. Cassie is tough, self-reliant, an excellent paramedic and fearless firefighter. Emotionally she has barriers and walls she will not allow anyone to cross in order to protect herself.  Her future takes an unplanned spin when she receives a call from her estranged mother. Her mother's request is timed just as Cassie has to choose a new direction for her future.
I enjoyed reading of the camaraderie of the firefighters, the codes of conduct, and about how Cassie learns about forgiveness. As she learns to forgive herself and to forgive her mother, Cassie is unknowingly preparing to learn to forgive a stalker on a larger level.

This was such a wonderful book and I appreciate the Advanced Reading copy I received from St. Martin's Press and MacMillian Publishers.
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Photograph by Diane Lochala
"Watchful"




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