A Well Told Story!

The Stars Are Fire is a fictional well-written and captivating story, which takes place in Maine during its historic fire of 1947.  

Grace Holland felt trapped and alone in her marriage. She knew that she was on her own when an uncontrollable fire terrorized her town, burning everything in its way. Grace was able to save her two children, but her husband Gene, who had been fighting the fire, was declared missing. Grace’s home and everything in it was destroyed. She knew that she’d have to reinvent herself.

Grace didn’t like taking over her less than kind, deceased mother-in-law’s home, but desperate times demanded desperate measures. However, when she found the house already occupied, by a concert pianist, life took an unexpected turn, for the better.

Grace’s happy-ever-after didn’t come easily, though. She had many trials and emotions to live through first. 

Although, The Stars Are Fire, is not a page-turner, it is a compelling read. The story is thought-provoking, emotional, and captivating.

~4 out of 5 stars~

Amazon                                                    B&N

Bio (from author’s page on Amazon)

Anita Shreve grew up in Dedham, Massachusetts (just outside Boston), the eldest of three daughters. Early literary influences include having read Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton when she was a junior in high school (a short novel she still claims as one of her favorites) and everything Eugene O’Neill ever wrote while she was a senior (to which she attributes a somewhat dark streak in her own work). After graduating from Tufts University, she taught high school for a number of years in and around Boston. In the middle of her last year, she quit (something that, as a parent, she finds appalling now) to start writing. “I had this panicky sensation that it was now or never.”

Joking that she could wallpaper her bathroom with rejections from magazines for her short stories (“I really could have,” she says), she published her early work in literary journals. One of these stories, “Past the Island, Drifting,” won an O. Henry prize. Despite this accolade, she quickly learned that one couldn’t make a living writing short fiction. Switching to journalism, Shreve traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, where she lived for three years, working as a journalist for an African magazine. One of her novels, The Last Time They Met, contains bits and pieces from her time in Africa.

Returning to the United States, Shreve was a writer and editor for a number of magazines in New York. Later, when she began her family, she turned to freelancing, publishing in the New York Times Magazine, New York magazine and dozens of others. In 1989, she published her first novel, Eden Close. Since then she has written 14 other novels, among them The Weight of Water, The Pilot’s Wife, The Last Time They Met, A Wedding in December, Body Surfing, Testimony,and A Change in Altitude.

In 1998, Shreve received the PEN/L. L. Winship Award and the New England Book Award for fiction. In 1999, she received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey, and The Pilot’s Wife became the 25th selection of Oprah’s Book Club and an international bestseller. In April 2002, CBS aired the film version of The Pilot’s Wife, starring Christine Lahti, and in fall 2002, The Weight of Water, starring Elizabeth Hurley and Sean Penn, was released in movie theaters.