On the evening of July 24, 2018, author Celeste White stepped outside her home to find a massive, boiling fire cloud blotting out the Western sky. Celeste and her husband fled three times in twenty-four hours to keep ahead of the Carr Fire, and they barely escaped the EF3 fire tornado that jumped the Sacramento River. Evacuated for two weeks, they waited anxiously to find out whether their home had survived the fire storm.
Summer of Fire is a story of climate change and of home. It is the story of Redstone, a hand-built labor of love, and it also examines the effects of climate change as it threatens our planetary home. It is a story that was once unusual, but that is becoming more and more commonplace. It may become everyone’s story one day.
Times were looking bleak after a year of unemployment for author Celeste White and her husband Richard. But a phone call from Richard’s fairy godmother, a wealthy heiress who offered them a dream job in Costa Rica, completely changed their fortune. The story takes place during 1983 and 1984, during which time they lived next door to Commander Zero, the leader of the Contras who were waging a counter-revolutionary war against the Sandanistas in neighboring Nicaragua.
Before television had become widespread in the country, before the first high rise hotel was built in Costa Rica, before zip lines—even telephones and gas stations—were installed in the cloud forest of Monteverde, Costa Rica existed as it had for generations of happy, proud residents. Crazy Good Fortune offers a cornucopia of magical, delightful, and often hilarious experiences, populated by characters you will never forget. An intimate, affectionate portrait of a country and a people.
