A FIE SO WILD

From debut novelist Sarah Ruiz-Grossman comes a gorgeous and urgent debut novel for fans of Julia Phillips and Charlotte McConaghy.

As wildfire threatens the Berkeley Hills, neighbors are forced to reckon with the cracks in the lives they've built. Abigail, a white woman who prides herself on her job in affordable housing, has no idea her wife is planning to leave her - Taylor is quietly suffocating as a stay-at-home mom after leaving a fraught but lucrative career as a Black woman in tech. Their son Xavier is smitten with the new girl at school, Mar, a Latinx aspiring activist focusing her rage on climate inequity in the aftermath of her parents' divorce. And under the noses of the Hills' wealthy families, Sunny and Willow, an unhoused couple, struggle to survive. Despite increasing fire warnings, Abigail throws herself a lavish birthday party, hoping it will somehow bring her family back to picture-perfect closeness. During the party, the wildfire tears through the neighborhood, taking ruthless harvest from both haves and have-nots. In its aftermath, tensions ignite as the families confront the injustices laid bare in the ashes and seek the courage to create something new. Like a wildfire itself, Sarah Ruiz-Grossman's A FIRE SO WILD is gorgeous and devastating, tautly paced and richly textured as it examines why when everything burns, not everyone is left with scars. Ruiz-Grossman is a reporter at HuffPost covering wildfires, homelessness, and other symptoms of our no-longer-ignorable climate crisis. She lives in California with her partner and their dog. This is her debut novel, claiming a space at the intersection of Little Fires Everywhere and The Overstory.