I was really excited to get to this one because I was interested to read a Costa Rican story and the premise sounded really neat. Unfortunately, I don't really remember much after reading. I just must have not been in the right headspace when I got to it, so I may come back to it again later.

I love me a family inter generational book! And the opening is so captivating. Appreciate the different POVs and the fully created characters.

An epic opening! Arias writes with beautiful lyricism, and there is of course, a larger political-social history here. Much needed read.

A beautiful multigenerational story set in Costa Rica from the 1950s through 1990s, mostly 1968 and 1995. There was just the right amount of suspense surrounding the "main event" (the fire) without detracting from the important part of this book: the relationships. Highly recommend!

This is one of those deeply entwined novels that you will find yourself revisiting and pulling apart new pieces. There is a lot of magical realism here. Maybe. No spoilers, but I will say that if magical realism is not your bag, then this one gives you an out. That out should make you quite uncomfortable though. But I do wonder if you aren't a fan of magical realism if you'd quite get the foundation of that discomfort.

If you like big, sweeping, generational sagas, magical realism, a bit (or lot) of melancholy, and can keep up with the non-linear revelation of events, this one will be well worth adding to your TBR. The only people I see really despising it are those who struggle with non-chronological stories. If that is you, you may throw this book across the room and call it quits pretty early on. If you like the rides that need seatbelts, buckle up.

It would be five emphatic stars without the epilogue, but I'm not really sure what to do with the epilogue. The ultimate conquest, surely. Complete genocide. It dampens and saddens the rest (even more) and has me questioning magical realism as a genre in the face of imperialism. Racism? Exoticization for entertainment? But mostly how do us regular people make it through, or not.

Magical realism, matriarchy, and corporate malfeasance

On an overheated night in 1968, a fire burns out of control on a banana plantation in Costa Rica–and a family’s life is destroyed. Decades later, as a hurricane bears down on their community, the women of the family come to terms with all the ways their lives have been shaped by what happened that night.

Shifting between 1968 and 1995, and between the lives of Theresa, the novel moves primarily between Theresa, the family matriarch who lost her mother and her husband that night, and her estranged daughter Lyra–but also moves into the consciousness of other characters, including a corporate lawyer involved in the massive cover up that ultimately ended in fire and destruction.

Lush with images of the tropical foliage and dreamlike magical realism, the novel also manages to be a literary page-turner, slow burn expose (pun intended!) of corporate wrongdoing in the banana industry, and aching depiction of abusive colonial legacies. I highly recommend this book!

A family saga with magical realism elements, Central American setting and feel. This is an interesting book on many levels with historical information woven in.

Where There Was Fire is an immersive, richly drawn portrait of the consequences of a fire on a banana plantation on one Costa Rican family across multiple generations. It's told through lots of perspectives in a nonlinear timeline, which made it a little hard for me to keep up with what was going on at the beginning, but the ending was absolutely worth it. I recommend going into this like a short story collection: take each chapter/perspective as its own story, then let the puzzle pieces fall into place as it goes. Definitely worth sitting with the confusion and waiting for it to come together!

The author circles “That Night” when Teresa, Lyra, and Carmen’s world are forever turned upside down. He weaves in folklore, colonialism, US destabilization from the American Fruit Company, classism, colorism, and a cast of satellite characters who piece by piece provide all of the understanding about “That Night.” The masterful weaving together of these elements accompanied by artful language and phrasing makes this work ring with magical realism, pain, and will make you gasp when you discover what is behind “That Night.”

The ghosts of this work are found in a decaying box of papers in a bodega, in black sculpture, in a railroad line that runs through a community to the remains of a banana plantation, in the fractured mind of a child, and in the decay in which a collection of elderly women survive. So many ghosts all pointing towards peace and justice.

Punctuated thought this decay are the sparks of life that resist the long tentacles of destruction. It comes from Cristina’s pink Pontiac, pink shell house with blue Moroccan tiles, Lyra’s cherry red Peugeot, the green wax coated guest house, the colorful flora and fauna that shine like jewels, and always the moon. The moon. Over and over again, the moon. The entire work is vibrant and unapologetically pursues joy through all of this haunting.

Beautiful, lyrical writing, evoking scents and sounds that amplify both the darkness and the light of this family saga. While the chapters bounce back and forth in time, the slow reveal of the story brings depth to the characters, helps explain their flaws. Magical realism plays along the edges of the novel, perfectly balancing the very real and raw trauma.

I wasn't feeling like it was lyrical so much as I felt like it was heavy exposition from "an author who couldn't murder their darlings." There was a lot of potential based on the blurb, but the execution fell flat for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for the ARC.