The only things Cassandra knows about her family are the stories she's heard in snatches over the years: about the aunt and cousin she never got to meet, about the man from the folded-up photograph in one of her aunt's drawers, and of course about her cousin Chevy, and why he never speaks - but no one utters a word about them any more.
When a call from one of her sisters brings Cassandra news of Chevy's death, she has to return home for the funeral. To Toronto and the big house on Florence Street, where her sisters are hiding more than themselves in their rooms, where the tension brewing between her mother and aunts has been decades in the making, and where sooner or later every secret, unspoken word and painful memory will find its way out into the open.
Moving between Toronto and Trinidad, Wild Fires is a vivid and compelling story exploring the ways we mourn and why we avoid the very things that can save us.
I was very excited to be on the tour for Wild Fires, and love the beautiful physical copy HarperCollins sent me.
Wild Fires is a story of grief, it delves so deep into how grief and death effect everyone differently. I loved the character Cass, and I loved her mother. What a character her mother was! I did laugh out loud at a couple of phrases she used, I could picture her perfectly in my head. Big, headstrong, no nonsense woman, who wouldn’t be afraid to smack you round the head if you were cheeky.
Cassandra’s family seemed so shrouded in mystery and secrets, and I loved figuring things out from the past. I particularly enjoyed the parts which went back to the past, to Trinidad, when the aunts were young, getting jobs, meeting boys etc. The sound of the fresh food in the store, the colours and the heat. Made me want to be there.
I think you’d like this book, it stays with you for a while after. Try it.
Thanks again to HarperCollins for letting me join the tour, and the book. And of course to Sophie Jai for writing it.
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