In the opening pages of Jamie Ford’s stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle’s Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol.

This simple act takes old Henry Lee back to the 1940s, at the height of the war, when young Henry’s world is a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who is obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While “scholarshipping” at the exclusive Rainier Elementary, where the white kids ignore him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship–and innocent love–that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. And after Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept.

Forty years later, Henry Lee is certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko. In the hotel’s dark dusty basement he begins looking for signs of the Okabe family’s belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot begin to measure. Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice–words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago.

Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope. In Henry and Keiko, Jamie Ford has created an unforgettable duo whose story teaches us of the power of forgiveness and the human heart.

About Jamie

Jamie Ford is the great-grandson of Nevada mining pioneer Min Chung, who emigrated from Kaiping, China, to San Francisco in 1865, where he adopted the Western name “Ford,” thus confusing countless generations. Ford is an award-winning short-story writer, an alumnus of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and a survivor of Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp. Having grown up near Seattle’s Chinatown, he now lives in Montana with his wife and children.

Visit Jamie’s website HERE and his BitterSweet Blog HERE.

Jamie Ford’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, January 18th: Word Lily

Tuesday, January 19th: Word Lily – author interview

Tuesday, January 19th: Diary of an Eccentric

Wednesday, January 20th: Bibliofreak

Thursday, January 21st: Crazy for Books

Tuesday, January 26th: A Novel Menagerie

Wednesday, January 27th: In Spring it is the Dawn

Friday, January 29th: Savvy Verse & Wit

Friday, January 29th: Save Ophelia

Monday, February 1st: Historical Tapestry

Tuesday, February 2nd: The Brain Lair

Wednesday, February 3rd: Lit and Life

Thursday, February 4th: Nerd’s Eye View

Friday, February 5th: Feminist Review

Monday, February 8th: Suko’s Notebook

Tuesday, February 9th: Books and Movies

Wednesday, February 10th: Suko’s Notebook – author interview