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Books About Fire

Books About Fire

Books About Fire

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In the United States, October is a significant month dedicated to a crucial aspect of community safety: Fire Prevention Month. This initiative, which has been observed since 1922, plays a vital role in raising awareness about fire safety, emphasizing the importance of prevention, preparedness, and understanding within families and communities. The goal is not only to educate individuals about the potential risks of fire but also to empower them with the knowledge and tools necessary to protect themselves and their loved ones.

This is an especially important initiative to me after losing my home to a fire in the fall of 2019. My husband and I had just purchased our first home, a condo in Chicago. We’d had it professionally painted the week prior and we’d just moved in two days ago. My parents made their way back to St. Louis that morning after working hard to get us (mostly) unpacked. My husband and I just left to do our first grocery run. Less than an hour later, we got a phone call from the fire department saying they’d rescued our dog, but that our home was on fire. Turns out, the woman living in the unit below ours started the self-cleaning cycle on her oven (which is highly advised against by anyone who is in the know) and then left the building (which, not leaving an operating oven un-attended should be a no-brainer.) But I digress…

One of the most effective ways to spread awareness and knowledge about fire safety is through education, and what better medium to achieve this than books? Reading provides a deep understanding of various aspects related to firefighting and fire, including its causes, prevention techniques, and the heroic efforts of firefighters who risk their lives to safeguard others. But also, reading fiction is fun and entertaining! Therefore, today, in the spirit of Fire Prevention Month, I’m sharing a curated list of books that will not only entertain, but also inform and, hopefully, inspire readers to prioritize fire safety.

Books About Fire

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned—from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren—an enigmatic artist and single mother—who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town—and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides.  Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.

Click here to read my full review of Little Fires Everywhere and click here to read my full interview with Olivia Campbell.

[What book character would you like to be stuck in an elevator with?]

Mia Warren from the phenomenal novel “Little Fires Everywhere” by Celeste Ng. I’d love the chance to pick her brain.
— Olivia Campbell

Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center

Cassie Hanwell was born for emergencies. As one of the only female firefighters in her Texas firehouse, she's seen her fair share of them, and she's a total pro at other people's tragedies. But when her estranged and ailing mother asks her to give up her whole life and move to Boston, Cassie suddenly has an emergency of her own. 

The tough, old-school Boston firehouse is as different from Cassie's old job as it could possibly be. Hazing, a lack of funding, and poor facilities mean that the firemen aren't exactly thrilled to have a "lady" on the crew - even one as competent and smart as Cassie. Except for the infatuation-inspiring rookie, who doesn't seem to mind having Cassie around. But she can't think about that. Because love is girly, and it’s not her thing. And don’t forget the advice her old captain gave her: Never date firefighters. Cassie can feel her resolve slipping...and it means risking it all - the only job she’s ever loved, and the hero she’s worked like hell to become. 

[If you weren’t an author, what would you be?]

I’d just be lost. I don’t know what I’d be. I hope it never comes to that again. Nothing else has come close for me.
— Katherine Center

Imagine Summer by Shelley Noble

As a child, Skylar Mackenzie’s imagination always got her in trouble. Now it’s making her a fortune. She owns Imagine That, a toy and book store and creativity center in a small Rhode Island beach town where children can use their imagination free from judgment. It has quickly expanded into a second space, Imagine That Too, for creative and de-stressing programs for adults, popular with parents and corporate execs.

Just as Skye is about to embark on retreat in town for the local businesses, she's shocked to discover her half-sister Amy, who has been gone for almost fifteen years, on the doorstep of her Aunt Roxy's B&B. And she's not alone.

Always the pretty, well-behaved one to Skye's wild child, Amy's insatiable need for more ended up hurting everyone, including Skye, and when she blew out of town, she was joined by Skye's first love, Conner Reid. Skye turned to her beloved Aunt Roxy and promised she wouldn't let Amy hurt her ever again.

Now Amy's back, she swears she wants to make it up to Skye, but soon she's up to her old tricks and wreaking havoc all throughout the town. Connor tries to convince her to leave, and himself that he no longer has feelings for Skye, but to no avail.

When a devastating fire spreads through the retreat, just a week before the start date, Skye is terrified that history is repeating itself, that Amy has started the fire in a misplaced act of revenge. Amy is innocent, but when she sees how her actions have hurt her sister, she knows she needs to change her life.

As the town bands together to rebuild the retreat, Amy and Skye realize in order to rebuild their relationship and move on, they must face the past. History doesn’t always have to repeat itself, not if you’re willing to fight for what you love and accept a little help from your friends.

Find my Bookish Buys feature of another Shelley Noble novel, Picture Perfect Autumn, here.

Sugar Birds by Cheryl Grey Bostrom

SUGAR BIRDS by Cheryl Grey Bostrom (August 3, She Writes Press) immerses readers in a layered, evocative coming-of-age story that paints a beautiful picture of the ties between humans and the natural world. When ten-year-old Aggie Hayes lights a devastating fire and hides in the Pacific Northwest wilderness, the guilt-ridden girl uncovers a dangerous plan that threatens the lives of two who are searching for her. In order to help, she must forgive herself and come out of hiding to intervene.

The Night We Burned by S.F. Kosa

A new psychological thriller from suspense powerhouse S.F. Kosa featuring a decades-old secret, a mysterious cult fire, and a woman looking to outrun the ashes of her past...until they come roaring back once more. Dora is always aware of the line between fact and fiction. As a fact checker at an online magazine, her job depends on it. And as a woman outrunning her secrets, so does her life. But when a colleague decides to pursue a story about a murder in her hometown, one linked to a deadly fire at a cult compound twenty years prior, suddenly all of Dora's carefully spun deceptions are at risk. And if she can't stop the story, her entire life is on the line.

Summer's Edge by Dana Mele

I Know What You Did Last Summer meets The Haunting of Hill House in this atmospheric, eerie teen thriller following an estranged group of friends being haunted by their friend who died last summer. Emily Joiner was once part of an inseparable group, summers without Emily were unthinkable. Until the fire burned the lake house to ashes with her inside. A year later, it’s in Emily’s honor that Chelsea and her four friends decide to return. Emily’s death wasn’t an accident. And all the clues needed to find the person responsible are right here. As old betrayals rise to the surface, Chelsea and her friends have one night to unravel a mystery spanning three summers before a killer among them exacts their revenge.

After We Were Stolen by Brooke Beyfuss

When the police discover that Avery and her brother Cole, who are living on the streets after a fire destroyed the compound they called home, are the children from cold-case kidnappings fifteen years ago, the pair is separated. Lonely and desperate, Avery knows she won’t find peace until she ascertains whether anyone else in her “family” survived the fire… and the truth behind the fire itself. When it gets out that only six bodies were found in the fire, not ten, Avery knows what must be done. She’ll discover the truth behind the fire, even if it’s the last thing she does.

Sleep No More by Jayne Ann Krentz

New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz returns with the first novel of the Lost Night Files, an exciting new romantic suspense trilogy about a night that changed three women forever—but that none of them can remember.

Seven months ago, Pallas Llewellyn, Talia March, and Amelia Rivers were strangers, until their fateful stay at the Lucent Springs Hotel. An earthquake and a fire partially destroyed the hotel, but the women have no memory of their time there. Now close friends, the three women co-host a podcast called the Lost Night Files, where they investigate cold cases and hope to connect with others who may have had a similar experience to theirs—an experience that has somehow enhanced the psychic abilities already present in each woman.

After receiving a tip for their podcast, Pallas travels to the small college town of Carnelian, California, to explore an abandoned asylum. Shaken by the dark energy she feels in the building, she is rushing out when she’s stopped by a dark figure—who turns out to be the women's mysterious tipster.

Ambrose Drake is certain he’s a witness to a murder, but without a body, everyone thinks he’s having delusions caused by extreme sleep deprivation. But Ambrose is positive something terrible happened at the Carnelian Sleep Institute the night he was there. Unable to find proof on his own, he approaches Pallas for help, only for her to realize that Ambrose, too, has a lost night that he can’t remember—one that may be connected to Pallas. Pallas and Ambrose conduct their investigation using the podcast as a cover, and while the townsfolk are eager to share what they know, it turns out there are others who are not so happy about their questions—and someone is willing to kill to keep the truth from coming out.

[When did you know you wanted to become an author?]

Can’t remember the exact date but I know I was in my early twenties and had come to the conclusion that, while I loved reading romantic suspense with a psychic twist, I wanted to tell a story my way.
— Jayne Ann Krentz

Daughters of Nantucket by Julie Gerstenblatt

Set against Nantucket’s Great Fire of 1846, this sweeping, emotional novel brings together three courageous women battling to save everything they hold dear…

Nantucket in 1846 is an island set apart not just by its geography but by its unique circumstances. With their menfolk away at sea, often for years at a time, women here know a rare independence—and the challenges that go with it.

Eliza Macy is struggling to conceal her financial trouble as she waits for her whaling captain husband to return from a voyage. In desperation, she turns against her progressive ideals and targets Meg Wright, a pregnant free Black woman trying to relocate her store to Main Street. Meanwhile, astronomer Maria Mitchell loves running Nantucket’s Atheneum and spending her nights observing the stars, yet she fears revealing the secret wishes of her heart.

On a sweltering July night, a massive fire breaks out in town, quickly kindled by the densely packed wooden buildings. With everything they possess now threatened, these three very different women are forced to reevaluate their priorities and decide what to save, what to let go and what kind of life to rebuild from the ashes of the past.

Malibu Burning by Lee Goldberg

Hell comes to Southern California every October. It rides in on searing Santa Ana winds that blast at near hurricane force, igniting voracious wildfires. Master thief Danny Cole longs for the flames. A tsunami of fire is exactly what he needs to pull off a daring crime and avenge a fallen friend.

As the most devastating firestorms in Los Angeles’ history scorch the hills of Malibu, relentless arson investigator Walter Sharpe and his wild card of a new partner, Andrew Walker, a former US marshal, suspect that someone set the massive blazes intentionally, a terrifying means to an unknown end.

While the flames rage out of control, Danny pursues his brilliant scheme, unaware that Sharpe and Walker are closing in. But when they all collide in a canyon of fire, everything changes, pitting them against an unexpected enemy within an inescapable inferno.

[When did you know you wanted to be an author?]

I think I always knew I wanted to be an author...but the moment when I knew that I could actually **do it** was when I read FLETCH, by Gregory MacDonald. It was a clever crime novel that was almost entirely driven by dialogue...it was how he revealed character and plot. It was an epiphany. I didn’t have the skill then, of course, to pull it off... but somehow I knew it was within my reach.
— Lee Goldberg

Moving Forward by Shelley Shepard Gray

Former Army captain Greg Tebo loves his new life in Woodland Park. In the two years since he joined the WPFD, he’s gained a reputation as a fearless firefighter, and after being stationed all around the country and overseas, he can’t wait to settle down with a wife and kids.

When a call comes in about a possible heart attack at the scene of a fire at the Garden Center, Greg assumes they’re going to be helping an elderly customer—not the beautiful, feisty proprietor in her late twenties. Kristen Werner has been determined to pretend everything is fine. She refuses to leave the company she’s carefully nurtured and move home to her loving but meddling family in Houston. Since her devastating diagnosis caused her fiancé to dump her, she’s given up on love and thrown herself into cultivating her blooming business instead—even if the hard work further weakens her heart.

Greg is drawn to Kristen’s vibrant, independent spirit and hopes romance will flower. But she’s had enough trouble with her heart to last a lifetime, and can’t trust Greg not to break it—especially if he finds out she can never give him the houseful of children he longs for....

The Stark Beauty of Last Things by Céline Keating

The Stark Beauty of Last Things is set in Montauk, the far reaches of the famed Hamptons, an area under looming threat from a warming climate and overdevelopment. Now outsider Clancy, a thirty-six-year-old claims adjuster scarred by his orphan childhood, has inherited an unexpected legacy: the power to decide the fate of Montauk’s last parcel of undeveloped land.

Everyone in town has a stake in the outcome, among them Julienne, an environmentalist and painter fighting to save the landscape that inspires her art; Theresa, a bartender whose trailer park home is jeopardized by coastal erosion; and Molly and Billy, who are struggling to hold onto their property against pressure to sell. When a forest fire breaks out, Clancy comes under suspicion for arson, complicating his efforts to navigate competing agendas for the best uses of the land and to find the healing and home he has always longed for.

Told from multiple points of view, The Stark Beauty of Last Things explores our connection to nature—and what we stand to lose when that connection is severed.

A Very Inconvenient Scandal by Jacquelyn Mitchard

Frankie Attleboro returns home to Cape Cod with thrilling news. She’s met the love of her life, they’re getting married and have a baby on the way. Her talented, charismatic father overshadows her with his own announcement: he’s also getting married. To Frankie’s best friend, Ariel, who is also pregnant, and due soon. In an instant, he upends Frankie’s life. Her father’s choices will have profound implications for her, for her family and for her unborn child.

Before Frankie and Ariel can adjust to this new reality, Ariel’s estranged mother, Carlotta, returns after a decade-long absence. Carlotta’s presence is unsettling—where has she been all these years? Why did she come back now? Frankie is suspicious. She digs into Carlotta’s past, where she finds multiple identities, unexplained illnesses and a mysterious house fire that was never solved. As her mother's dangerous behavior intensifies, Frankie must untangle the threads of Carlotta’s past to protect Ariel’s future—and her own.

[When did you know you wanted to be an author?]

In fifth grade, a teacher was reading aloud from ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ and he read from the part in which the black reverend tells Scout Finch, “Stand up, Miss Jean Louise, your father’s passing ...” and the teacher couldn’t finish, because he started to cry. I was overwhelmed by the power of words, even familiar words, to summon emotion.
— Jacquelyn Mitchard

Radiant Heat by Sarah-Jane Collins

When a catastrophic wildfire suddenly rips through a woman’s hometown, she thinks she is lucky to have survived...until she finds a dead woman in her driveway, clutching a piece of paper with her name on it....

Alison is alive. She rode out the fire on the damp tiles of her bathroom, her entire body swaddled in a wet woolen blanket. The flames crackled around her, the bitter char of eucalyptus settling in the back of her throat. The wildfire devastated the Victoria countryside she calls home, and when Alison creeps out of her hiding place, she spots a soot-covered cherry red car in her driveway, and in it, a woman. She finds the woman’s bag. An ID: Simone Arnold. A piece of paper: Alison’s full name and address. But why?

As Alison searches for answers across Australia’s harsh landscape, she soon learns that the fire isn’t the only threat she’s facing....

What We Learned From Our Housefire

Best Books about Firefighting

Looking for nonfiction titles about firefighting? Let me introduce you to John Salka, an FDNY battalion chief with over 40 years experience as a firefighter or in fire service leadership and the author of a number of books about firefighting, including:

The Fire Scene by John Salka

When John Salka joined his first fire department, he was an 18-year-old who just wanted to be a firefighter. Today, he looks back in amazement remembering the thrills, the shock and disappointments. But mostly he gives thanks for a wonderful ride.

The Fire Scene takes a look at the people, issues, tools, policies, successes, and failures that are part of the past 40 years in the American fire service.

You might also be interested in Dennis Smith, who served as a New York City firefighter for 18 years and wrote several books on his experience, including…

Report from Engine Co. 82 by Dennis Smith

From his bawdy and brave fellow firefighters to the hopeful, hateful, beautiful and beleaguered residents of the poverty-stricken district where he works, Dennis Smith tells the story of a brutalising yet rewarding profession.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive compensation if you make a purchase using this link. Thank you for supporting this blog and the books I recommend! I may have received a book for free in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
Bookish Buys: Snow Place Like Home by Lacey Baker

Bookish Buys: Snow Place Like Home by Lacey Baker

Books Publishing This Week

Books Publishing This Week

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