Fires of Change

Sarah Lark, author of The Fire Blossom, continues her epic family saga as a defiant new generation of women comes of age amid social unrest and precarious love in colonial New Zealand.

It’s 1863, nearly twenty years since Ida Lange came to New Zealand to change her life and realize a dream. With her best friend, Cat, she established a thriving sheep farm on the continental plains where their combined families settled—and succeeded. But the idyll of Rata Station could be reaching an end. The fires of change are coming again, and this time it’s Ida’s and Cat’s daughters—Mara, Carol, and Linda—who will get swept up in the ensuing chaos.

The spirited Mara is in the first blush of romantic awakening with a half-Maori boy torn between two heritages. Mara’s love for him is a greater risk than either of them can imagine. Carol, engaged to the son of a local sheep baron, has a prospect that seems safe—yet fate has other plans. And Linda, Carol’s sweet-natured “twin,” who holds the family secret of her heritage close to her heart, can’t imagine a life outside Rata Station. Then a sudden tragedy throws the families into peril and desperation.

As tensions escalate between the warring Maori tribes and English settlers, Mara, Carol, and Linda struggle to overcome increasing hardships for themselves and for each other. Drawing on their strong will, resilience, and unbreakable bond, they’ll do anything to secure their future at Rata Station before it slips away forever.

Sarah Lark, born in Germany and now a resident of Spain, is a bestselling author of historical fiction, including the Fire Blossom Saga, the Sea of Freedom Trilogy, and the In the Land of the Long White Cloud Saga. She is a horse aficionado and former travel guide who has experienced many of the world’s most beautiful landscapes on horseback. Through her adventures, she has developed an enduring relationship with the places she’s visited and the people who live there. In her writing, Lark introduces readers to a New Zealand full of magic, beauty, and charm. Her ability to weave romance with history and to explore all the dark and triumphal corners of the human condition has resonated with readers worldwide.

Kate Northrop is a translator and lyricist who grew up in Connecticut and studied music and English literature in the United States and the United Kingdom. Her travels led her to the German-speaking region of Switzerland, where she’s lived with her Swiss husband and their two bilingual children since 1994. Her professional translation credits include Sarah Lark’s Fire Blossom Saga and Ines Thorn’s Island of Sylt trilogy. As a lyricist, Kate has been signed to major music labels and publishers. With more than eighteen years of experience, Kate now runs her own literary translation business, Art of Translation. Visit her at www.art-of-translation.com.