Christy Lefteri is a phenomenal writer, and I will read whatever she writes. The Book of Fire is no exception.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me.

4.5 Stars
One Liner: Sad but beautiful; a bit meandering

Greece
Irini, a musician, lives with her painter husband, Tasso, and their sweet ten-year-old daughter Chara. They live in a beautiful home deep in an ancient forest bordering a seaside village. One day, a raging forest fire devours the village and many of its people. Chara is injured. Tasso’s hands are burnt and he lost his sense of purpose.
Irini does her best to survive the aftermath and return to a new routine with her family like everyone else in the region. However, one day she stumbles upon the man responsible for the fire; the man whose greed led to utter destruction. Irini makes a split-second decision that stays with her forever.
The story comes in the first-person POV of Irini and snippets from The Book of Fire in the third-person.

My Thoughts:
We need to be in a certain mood for some books. This is one such example. I pushed this down my 2024 list because I wasn’t in the right mindset for it back then.
As someone who loves forests (shamelessly plugging my book Forests and Faeries), I 1000% enjoyed the descriptions of the region. So mesmerizing, vivid, and surreal! It felt as if I was in the forest, walking barefoot and breathing in the special scent. Bliss! (On that note, some readers may find this excessive)
Irini’s narration takes some time to get used to. She likes to go around in circles. I’d call this borderline stream of consciousness. Once you get into the flow, it’ll become easier to follow where her thoughts take her. Also, she is not someone who likes to face disturbing things, so her avoidance makes the narration go around in circles. Interestingly, this shapes her daughter’s personality (and I did feel sad for the kid a few times).
Half the details are provided through chapters titled The Book of Fire. These have a sort of distant tone, which makes sense and works well to balance Irini’s first-person POV in the other chapters. We also get some history lessons without a load of info dump.
NGL, I expected the book to be slow. But it is not! Wouldn’t call it fast-paced but it is steady and has a good tempo. Or maybe it is because I like to lose myself in the forest.
There’s a bit of repetition and some discrepancies in details. Also, the dialogues sound a bit off. However, these are minor complaints.
The ending is hopeful, a necessity since the book has heavy melancholy, pain, and tragedy. While not everything is fixed, there is enough happiness to find peace and accept reality.
The author’s note is informative and thought-provoking. It is also probably the only lyrical author’s note I read so far. This makes the note feel more like an extension of the book than a separate entity added at the end.

To summarize, The Book of Fire is a heartbreakingly beautiful, lyrical, and poignant story of people, nature, family, and life. It is a heavy read so pick it up when you are in the mood for something like this.
And oh, thank you for mentioning how to pronounce Chara (C is silent) right when the character was introduced. I wasn’t sure if it was ‘Ch’ara or ‘K’ara. Neither, apparently!
Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, for eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

I loved The Beekeeper of Aleppo, so I was really excited to read Lefteri’s most recent work. It was actually one of my most anticipated reads this year. It’s described as following an artistic family living out in the woods whose lives are destroyed by a forest fire and by a mother who does something shocking without thinking. I envisioned an eco-thriller with some emotional gut punches.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t really any of those things. It was a more quiet, reflective story that flashes between different POVs and different timelines. There isn’t really anything thrilling or mysterious. Everything is pretty straightforward, making for a read that sort of plods along.

Where this book does really shine is in its portrayal of post traumatic stress disorder and how it affects different people differently. I think Lefteri really captured some of the more subtle parts of PTSD effectively. She also illustrated just how hard it can be to break free of it.

I also appreciate that this book touches on the climate change that made the fire grow out of control, but I actually wish it delved even deeper into this issue. I wish it had been more straightforward in its criticisms.

All in all, this was a decent book and maybe it was hurt by the fact that it was following such a stunner in Beekeeper. If you like modern historical fiction with some current topics and portrayals of PTSD, you may enjoy this one.

I liked parts of this book and parts just seemed to drag on for me. I think there was too much description of places that it made it boring in parts. I think the dual timeline and book within a book was a good idea but I did not feel that they came together very well. I did not find myself connecting with the characters though so it just kind of fell flat for me. I appreciate the author's note at the end and recommend reading that with the book. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC of this book.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc

I was not the targeted audience for this book and its different than what I have read before, but it was a miss for me. . I lost track of who was saying what and where the story was going .
I'm sad to say this was a DNF for me.

The Book of Fire is a beautifully written story of tragedy that’s also full of hope and perseverance.

Irini is a mother and music teacher who lives with her husband Tasso, a talented artist and their daughter Chara in Greece. When a raging fire starts in the nearby forest, lasting damage will affect the family and the whole community. People are killed, homes are lost and many injuries are suffered both externally and internally.

A heartbreaking and emotional story about living life in the wake of tragedy. The Book of Fire poses questions about who’s at fault for the increasing number of wildfires and what it takes to move on. With themes of guilt, responsibility and environmental consequences, the dual timeline is told from Irini’s perspective. Lefteri’s writing is sensational and the story of human endurance is uplifting.

Thank you to Random House - Ballantine and NetGalley for the advanced reader’s copy.

Christy Lefteri is an amazing writer. I fell in love with the characters from the start. As with the Beekeeper of Aleppo, there is much tragedy but also hope. I would recommed this book to fans of Kristin Hannah.

In an old forest in contemporary Greece, a raging fire takes everything from Irini, a music teacher, Tasso, her artist husband and their daughter, Chara. The fire was started by a developer who wanted to clear a small piece of land. Irini finds him in the forest. How did he die? As her family struggles to recover, Irini must decide how much to tell the police. This disaster changes their lives forever but also teaches them the importance of home, family and love.

I liked this but I didn’t love it.
I felt like it dragged on longer than it needed to. Filled with more description than necessary
There were times I was really engaged and enjoying it, and other times I wanted to quit.
I appreciated the author’s note, which made the story more meaningful.
Thank you Nergalley for the opportunity to read this, in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book. It was heartbreaking and emotional, as well as inspirational. It’s set in a village in Greece. There was a fire where people were killed, people were injured, and homes were destroyed. There’s one family in particular at the center of the story. They have experienced their own loss. And this is the description of the days of both the fire and their journey of healing afterwards.

"The Book of Fire" unfolds against the backdrop of a Greek village devastated by a fire sparked by a local real estate developer’s reckless actions. The blaze ravages the community, leaving destruction and sorrow in its wake. Irini, the protagonist, discovers the developer’s lifeless body in the remnants of the forest, prompting a moral dilemma: should she aid the man responsible for the catastrophe?

The story, narrated through dual timelines from Irini’s perspective, delves into themes of guilt, responsibility, and environmental consequences. While the novel’s themes are compelling and some scenes evoke deep emotion, the writing style detracts from the overall experience. Overly lengthy paragraphs and excessive descriptions bog down the pace.

Additionally, inconsistencies in character actions and dialogue disrupt the narrative’s authenticity.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

What I liked about this book:

1. There are some powerful themes in the book: Climate change, community and individual trauma, recovery. perseverance
2. The writing was poignant and lyrical.
3. I loved the description of the island, the healing that takes place and the message of "enjoy the moments - each and every day".

What I didn't like::
1. There was a repetition of some of the scenes and messages that felt like they could have been left out = almost too preachy.


My thanks to Net Galley and Ballantine Books for an advance copy of this book.

Couldn't get past the first couple chapters I just didn't care about the characters or the story honestly. I didn't feel pulled in at all.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this book.

This book was a DNF for me. I just couldn't get into the book at all and there was something about the writing that threw me off. I'm not saying it was bad in any way, just that this was not a book for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the opportunity to read The Book of Fire by Christy Lefteri. This book, beautifully, honestly writen, will break your heart

I meant to get this written sooner, while the book was still fresh in my mind. Unfortunately, that didn't happen; and, since Netgalley won't let me highlight any more, it's hard to go back and grab specifics or refresh my memory. These are the highlights of what I recall:
Lefteri utilizes dual storylines here, one first-person account of the family after the fire, the other Irini's third-person recounting of the fire and its immediate aftermath. I liked the concept but, as with so many dual storyline novels, one feels more compelling than the other.
The parts describing the spread of the fire and Irini's and Chara's time in the water waiting for rescue are truly frightening. The fear, the exhaustion, the fight to survive are all vividly portrayed.
The present day storyline often felt repetitive; I think things could have been cleaned up to make that storyline tighter.
I always appreciate a novel where the ending is not a forgone conclusion. I did like the way this one ended, with not everything tied up neatly.
I appreciated that the bad guy was given some balance.
I really enjoyed learning some history of Greece, reading about Irini's family's immigrant experience, spending some time with the locals, and the way Lefteri used climate change to craft the rest of the story.

I picked this one because it takes place in Greece. The writing in this one was impressive. It was very descriptive and meaningful. There was so much devastation because of the fire. So many deaths and injuries and lasting mental and physical scars. It was an emotional story.

It wasn’t a book I would have chosen if it wasn’t for my book club. I’m glad I was able to read it with them.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House - Ballantine for my ARC of this book.

The Book of Fire is a reminder to the reader just how fragile life is and how, in the blink of an eye, everything can change.Thank you netgalley and the publisher for the arc in exchange for a review

📕 “There was one boy who caught his eye, similar in age to himself, tattered clothes and forlorn eyes, and in his hands, he held a bouzouki. For a split second, the boy thought he was seeing himself, that he was in fact looking into a mirror that stretched across the land. But then he realized that the instrument in the boy's hands was not the same as his: it was a baglama, a long-necked lute. " "They are Turkish, a man behind him said. 'They are being led away from their homes by the Greeks. They are heading the way we came.' "And with these words, the boy understood what his father had meant. They demonize each other, he had said. The 'other' is always to blame and it fuels people and groups and governments with fire. This never leads to any good on this earth. And right here Vassilios could see that they were all their own enemies, that they were all human, all in pain, all hurting each other from hatred and fear.”
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📗The clash of hopelessness and hopefulness was so obvious in this story. Hopelessness of a father who saw the destruction (death of a parent) was harder to fix even with hopefulness of a daughter who had seen another destruction standing next to her father. But the worst was for the woman who got stuck between this husband and this daughter
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📘There was something unspeakable done to a person in this story. It made me think of the age old question of if capital punishment is acceptable for certain type of crimes. Weirdly this action felt far more barbaric than the capital punishment. But also, can we blame the people?

The Book of Fire was a wonderfully written story about how one tragic event shapes so many lives for decades. The resilience of the human spirit was a strong theme in this book and Lefteri's writing never ceases to amaze.