The Fire (Neville novel)

Last updated

The Fire, published in 2008, is a novel by American author Katherine Neville. It is an adventure/quest novel which is a sequel to her debut novel The Eight . The main character, Alexandra Solarin (daughter of Catherine Velis), must enter into a cryptic world of danger and conspiracy in order to recover the pieces of the Montglane Service, a legendary chess set once owned by Charlemagne. The novel contains several repeated elements from The Eight and was a New York Times Bestseller for six months. [1]

Contents

Plot summary

The Fire is launched thirty years after the events of The Eight , when a chess piece from the Montglane Service mysteriously resurfaces in Russia. The children of the previous characters know nothing of the quest of their parents, but are drawn into it nonetheless — and “The Game” is afoot again.

The plot moves between modern day and the early 1800s, 30 years after the French Revolution. In 2008, Alexandra arrives to find that her mother is missing and that a series of strategically placed clues, followed swiftly by the unexpected arrival of a mysterious assortment of house guests, indicates that something sinister is afoot. Alexandra is swept into a journey that takes her from Colorado to the Russian wilderness and at last into her own hometown: Washington D.C.

In 1822, Haidée – the daughter of a powerful ruler in the Ottoman Empire – is sent on a dangerous mission to smuggle a crucial piece of the Montglane Service out of Albania to the hands of the one man who might be able to save it. Haidée’s journey from Albania to Morocco to Rome to Greece, and into the very heart of The Game, leads to revelations about the powerful chess set and its history. [1]

Reception

The Fire received rave reviews, spending more than 6 months on bestseller lists around the world, including France, Spain, Holland, New York, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, and DC. The Washington Post called the novel “[An] exotic, labyrinthine conspiracy tale . . . the perfect escapist adventure.” [2] The Chicago Sun-Times stated, "Katherine Neville’s follow up to The Eight, a cult classic that impressed many readers as a more intelligent and literary precursor to Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code. . . The Fire impresses as much for its literary aspects as it does for its action, puzzles and suspense . . . This is a book to be savored as it’s read, and admired for the beauty of its accomplishment.” [2]

In 2009 Neville was awarded the prestigious Silver Nautilus Book Award for Visionary Fiction for her novel, The Fire. [3]

Related Research Articles

<i>Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas</i> 1870 novel by Jules Verne

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas is a classic science fiction adventure novel by French writer Jules Verne.

<i>The Mysterious Island</i> 1875 novel by Jules Verne

The Mysterious Island is a novel by Jules Verne, published in 1875. The first edition, published by Hetzel, contains illustrations by Jules Férat. The novel is a crossover sequel to Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870) and In Search of the Castaways (1867–68), though its themes are vastly different from those books. An early draft of the novel, rejected by Verne's publisher and wholly reconceived before publication, was titled Shipwrecked Family: Marooned with Uncle Robinson, indicating the influence of the novels Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson. Verne developed a similar theme in his novel, Godfrey Morgan.

<i>Miss Smillas Feeling for Snow</i> 1992 novel by Peter Høeg

Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, published in America as Smilla's Sense of Snow, is a 1992 novel by Danish author Peter Høeg tracing the investigation into the suspicious death of a Greenlandic boy in Denmark. A global bestseller, it was translated into English by Tiina Nunnally.

Katherine Roberts is an English author, best known for her fantasy trilogy The Echorium Sequence. She spent most of her childhood in Devon and Cornwall, England. She is the daughter of Derek Robert, an electrical engineer, and Dorothy Margaret, a teacher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tess Gerritsen</span> Chinese-American novelist (born 1953)

Tess Gerritsen is the pseudonym of Terry Gerritsen, an American novelist and retired general physician.

Katherine Neville is a New York Times, USA Today and #1 internationally bestselling American author who writes adventure/quest novels. Her novels include The Eight (1988), A Calculated Risk (1992), The Magic Circle (1998) and The Fire (2008), which is a sequel to The Eight.

<i>The Eight</i> (novel) 1988 novel by Katherine Neville

The Eight, published 1988, is American author Katherine Neville's debut novel. It is an adventure/quest novel in which the heroine, computer whiz Catherine Velis, must enter into a cryptic world of danger and conspiracy in order to recover the pieces of a legendary chess set once owned by Charlemagne and buried for one thousand years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adriana Trigiani</span> American novelist

Adriana Trigiani is an American best-selling author of eighteen books, playwright, television writer/producer, film director/screenwriter/producer, and entrepreneur based in New York City. Trigiani has published a novel a year since 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Henley</span> British-Canadian writer

Virginia Henley, is a British-Canadian writer of historical-romance novels. She is well known for her Medieval, Renaissance and other period piece romance novels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skyhorse Publishing</span> American independent book publishing company

Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. is an American independent book publishing company founded in 2006 and headquartered in New York City, with a satellite office in Brattleboro, Vermont.

Gregg Olsen is a New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal bestselling author of nonfiction books and novels, most of which are crime-related. The subjects of his true crime books include convicted child rapist and school teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, product tampering killer Stella Nickell, fasting specialist Linda Burfield Hazzard, and former Amishman and convicted murderer Eli Stutzman.

Lauren Belfer is an American author of four novels: City of Light, A Fierce Radiance, And After the Fire andAshton Hall, which was published in June 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katherine Center</span> American author

Katherine Sherar Pannill Center is an American author of contemporary fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexandra Bracken</span> American author

Alexandra Bracken is a #1 New York Times bestselling American author known for The Darkest Minds series and Passenger series.

<i>The Moses Expedition</i> Novel by Juan Gómez-Jurado

The Moses Expedition is a bestselling thriller novel by Juan Gómez-Jurado originally published in Spain in 2007 and in the UK in 2010 by Orion with the title Contract with God. The book topped the bestselling list in Europe and some of the American lists such as Amazon's, having sold 1.5 million copies. It also won awards such as the "Best Popular Culture Novel" and "Best Adventure Novel" in the 2011 International Latino Book Awards, held in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sy Montgomery</span> Naturalist, author and scriptwriter (born 1958)

Sy Montgomery is an American naturalist, author, and scriptwriter who writes for children as well as adults.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shilpi Somaya Gowda</span> Canadian author

Shilpi Somaya Gowda is the award-winning, New York Times and internationally bestselling Canadian author of Secret Daughter, The Golden Son, and The Shape of Family. She lives in California with her family.

<i>The Emperors Riddles</i> 2014 novel by Satyarth Nayak

The Emperor's Riddles is a mystery thriller debut novel by Indian author Satyarth Nayak. The novel consists of a present-day trail of cryptic riddles scattered across India that must be solved one by one to unveil an ancient Indian secret. This journey plays out in the context of an esoteric legend involving one of the most iconic Emperors of the history of India. The book was first released at the New Delhi World Book Fair in February 2014. It turned out to be a bestselling thriller with the media calling it "a hit with young readers".

Morgan Rice is an American author of fantasy and science fiction novels, with her books making the New York Times, USA Today, Apple Books, and other bestseller lists. Her first novel A Quest of Heroes was self-published in 2013 and was the first of 17 books in her epic fantasy series The Sorcerer's Ring.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tiffany D. Jackson</span> American YA author and horror filmmaker

Tiffany D. Jackson is an American author and filmmaker. She writes young adult fiction and makes horror films. She is best known for her NAACP Image Award—nominated debut novel Allegedly.

References

  1. 1 2 The Fire « Katherine Neville
  2. 1 2 "Reviews". Katherine Neville | NY Times and #1 Internationally Bestselling Author. Retrieved 2019-10-02.
  3. ↑ "The Fire receives The Nautilus Award". Katherine Neville | NY Times and #1 Internationally Bestselling Author. Retrieved 2020-06-30.


Thrillerbook.png

This article about a thriller novel of the 2000s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.