A sweet, beautiful story with fabulous characters and a powerful message: Value your elders who, beneath their wrinkles, embody fascinating stories of heroism, humor, and perseverance.
-Award-Winning Author, Alicia Dean
A powerful reminder that love can move mountains. Through adversity, we find strength. Through self-discovery, we understand. Britt’s Fireside series lets us celebrate the lives lived and the lives lost. A triumphant read!
-Amy M. Le, Award-Winning Author of Snow in Vietnam
Fireside: The James Johnson Story
Imagine a place where retired cops eat breakfast with con artists and preachers dine with bootleggers, enjoying each other, living side by side. It’s not an impossible dream. It’s a place called Fireside Assisted Living Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
Fireside: The James Johnson Story is the first of the Fireside series and mirrors this diverse environment. Ginger, a rebellious redheaded nurse who hides her tattoos and jeans with a crisp lab coat by day and shoots tequila on the dance floor at night, directs Fireside. Endeared by her patients, Ginger has more compassion and clinical skill in one red nail extension than all the other nurses combined. This book focuses on Fireside resident James Johnson, a black sharecropper’s son, who falls in love with his high school sweetheart, Estelle, a white girl from a broken home. Many years later, shortly after Estelle passes away, James arrives at Fireside to rehabilitate after a leg amputation. James’s one remaining passion in life is to return to the home where he and Estelle built their life together.
Like the book Fried Green Tomatoes, reflective chapters remember James and Estelle’s youthful days of love in the 1950s, when it was frowned upon for whites and blacks to socialize, much less date. James and Estelle show their perseverance, humor, integrity, and imagination as they fight against a close-minded town and the football coach who has a personal vendetta against them.
Other unique characters at Fireside include Mr. Epstein, a nosey Auschwitz survivor; Rob, a gay marketing director; Diane, a perky physical therapist; Mrs. Klinger, a delightful retired schoolteacher; and Erma, a money-hungry administrator. All these characters bring drama and laughter to everyday happenings at Fireside.
Welcome to Fireside. I hope you enjoy your stay.
