It took my awhile to get into this book, as I didn’t know how all the characters would intertwine. The history shared was very interesting and intense. I have known the names of many people mentioned, as well as the places, so it was really neat to learn more details. This book reflects on the past, but also relates to what we are currently experiencing in our world with our natural resources. The story was beautifully written and once the characters started intertwining it flowed well! Thank you for this ARC!

This novel is a rollercoaster ride with a very diverse cast of characters and a storyline that spans decades. It is filled with little known facts about American history and storylines that will pull at your heartstrings. I loved the Midwestern focus, although multiple areas of the United States and even the world had cameos. History buffs would love this book because it is filled with facts and details that bring history to life. It was also refreshing that many of the historical events mentioned in the novel are less well known ones, so it feels very unique and I think a lot of people would learn new facts or at least gain a better understanding of life during the 1800’s.

There is a grittiness to the author’s writing that really shines during certain parts of the novel such as those taking place during the Civil War and its direct aftermath. Readers follow a character from cavalry service to being a prisoner of war at the infamous Andersonville Prison, following his journey all the way to the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Multiple POV’s are included in the novel and it was interesting how each character’s voice is written very differently, which makes them easy to differentiate. Delia has a very soft and simplistic outlook and way of speaking, but readers see her maturing and having to grapple with difficult experiences. Mo is very introspective and thoughtful, so it’s no surprise his character introduces readers to a lot of moral questions around the price of progress and whether humans should be considered more important than all the other parts of creation.

All of my main critiques fall into personal preference because the book was very well written, immaculately researched, and kept my interest the whole way through. Personally, I would have enjoyed a storyline that was more streamlined with a few less topics explored or for the book to be broken up into multiple books so each main storyline was able to shine. However, this isn’t a negative of the novel because it was remarkable how the author could connect so many seemingly unrelated historical events in one cohesive story! I found it a little unrealistic that some of the characters would experience so many different major historical events and that so many people with such different lives would all cross paths, but once again it was written together in an amazing way that did somehow work.

The book is a little hard to rate because I think it is more dependent on the audience reading it than a lot of books I read. I would rate it closer to three stars purely based on the plot, if you didn’t take into account that it is historical fiction with all the research and the way events are masterfully tied together. In contrast, I would easily rate it four and maybe even five stars for readers who absolutely love history and are going into it looking to learn new facts and get swept away by a complex story that has very captivating relationships between the characters.

Great historical fiction about a swedish orphan named Delia 📖

Loved Delia as a character and her overall strength.

Great story line and dialogue

The Fire Born sent me straight down a history rabbit hole. I knew about the Great Chicago Fire, but I knew far less about the Peshtigo fire, even though it was deadlier and happened the same night. Deborah Hufford builds the novel around that disaster while following people living on very different sides of the Lake Michigan economy, which gives the catastrophe a much wider human scale.

I especially liked Delia, a Swedish orphan living in a Wisconsin lumber-camp brothel, and Big Mo, the lumberjack who becomes one of the few people to see her as more than her circumstances. William Butler Ogden, Chicago’s first mayor and a major figure in rail and timber, adds another layer because the book connects personal survival to the industries that helped make the region so vulnerable to fire. Zelda, a circus lion tamer, was an unexpected addition and helped bridge those very different worlds.

Historical fiction tends to grab me most when it teaches me about an event I somehow missed despite thinking I knew the period pretty well. This did exactly that. The fire itself is horrifying, but I was just as interested in the drought, logging, wealth, and decisions that existed before anyone saw flames on the horizon.

My sincere thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a free advance review copy.