The House Is on Fire
Fiction
Simon & Schuster
April 4, 2023
Advance reader copy
384
Free from publisher
Richmond, Virginia 1811. It’s the height of the winter social season. The General Assembly is in session, and many of Virginia’s gentleman planters, along with their wives and children, have made the long and arduous journey to the capital in hopes of whiling away the darkest days of the year. At the city’s only theater, the Charleston-based Placide & Green Company puts on two plays a night to meet the demand of a populace that’s done looking for enlightenment in a church.
On the night after Christmas, the theater is packed with more than six hundred holiday revelers. In the third-floor boxes, sits newly widowed Sally Henry Campbell, who is glad for any opportunity to relive the happy times she shared with her husband. One floor away, in the colored gallery, Cecily Patterson doesn’t give a whit about the play but is grateful for a four-hour reprieve from a life that has recently gone from bad to worse. Backstage, young stagehand Jack Gibson hopes that, if he can impress the theater’s managers, he’ll be offered a permanent job with the company. And on the other side of town, blacksmith Gilbert Hunt dreams of one day being able to bring his wife to the theater, but he’ll have to buy her freedom first.
When the theater goes up in flames in the middle of the performance, Sally, Cecily, Jack, and Gilbert make a series of split-second decisions that will not only affect their own lives but those of countless others. And in the days following the fire, as news of the disaster spreads across the United States, the paths of these four people will become forever intertwined.
Based on the true story of Richmond’s theater fire, The House Is on Fire offers proof that sometimes, in the midst of great tragedy, we are offered our most precious—and fleeting—chances at redemption.
My review:
I loved this historical fiction account of the Richmond theater fire of 1811. Not surprisingly, because it's usually the case with most of my historical fiction, I had no knowledge of this devastating fire that killed hundreds, until reading this book. As with most novels of this type, while it is based in fact, and a few of the characters were in fact real people, the four people we follow (and their stories) are fictional. I definitely felt Cecily's story was the most compelling, and the tension that built surrounding her circumstances made for major page turning to get back to her sections. The other three character's stories (which are told in alternating chapters) were also very interesting and engaging, but hers was by far the one I was most invested in. All of the characters were really well drawn, and the parts we got about caring for the injured (who made it out), and the investigation into what started the fire were really interesting. I thought the pacing was great, the chapters are short, which for some reason keeps me reading longer (it's that "just one more chapter" concept). I loved that we were given closure for each of the four characters we followed, but it was not necessarily done up with a big red bow (which can often make the ending cheesy in my opinion). The last paragraph brought me to tears and gave me chills.
I was a fan of this author's previous work Florence Adler Swims Forever (check out my review of that one if you haven't read it), but I think this one was even better as far as the writing style and plot. I definitely recommend if you are a historical fiction fan!
