A taut, penetrating novella from the author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Heart's Invisible Furies, Boyne's study of a cruel and callous woman asks whether the harrowing experiences of her youth shaped the person she became.
On the face of it, Freya lives a gilded existence, dancing solely to her own tune. She has all the trappings of wealth and privilege, a responsible job as a surgeon specialising in skin grafts, a beautiful flat in a sought-after development, and a flash car. But it wasn’t always like this. Hers is a life founded on darkness.
Did what happened to Freya as a child one fateful summer influence the adult she would become – or was she always destined to be that person? Was she born with cruelty in her heart or did something force it into being?
In Fire, John Boyne takes the reader on a chilling, uncomfortable but utterly compelling psychological journey to the epicentre of the human condition, asking the age-old question: nurture – or nature?
Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd
ISBN: 9780857529879
Number of pages: 176
Weight: 281 g
Dimensions: 223 x 143 x 19 mm
Boyne has found a neat framework for a series of original novels, linked as much by theme and image as by character and setting. Fire is an exhilarating read. - Spectator
You will hurtle through the book, because it is such a compelling story, so cleverly written. - Irish Examiner
Hypnotically clean, clear prose... powerful and memorable - Irish Times
I absolutely love John Boyne’s writing and wow oh wow did this book deliver! This felt so different to any of his other books for me in that he wrote from the POV of someone soooo dark and twisted. It was honestly... More
As a reader you are quickly drawn to Freya, Dr Petrus, who initially appears a capable, calm and considerate doctor intent on doing the best for her burns victims. But as usual Boyne turns everything on its head and... More
Fire
By John Boyne
So chilling, this is the third in the Elements series, and Freya has the most disturbing narrative voice I have come across since the bould Maurice from A Ladder to the Sky.
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