THE FIRE SERMON

A high-concept YA/crossover novel which combines the literary sensibilities of novels such as 'Never Let Me Go' and 'The Road' with the character-driven, high-concept action of novels such as 'The Hunger Games' and 'Noughts and Crosses'.

Four hundred years after a nuclear apocalypse, in a society without technology, all humans are twins. One of each pair is an Alpha, physically perfect, while the other is an Omega, bearing some form of mutation. In the apartheid-like society, Omegas are branded and forced out to settlements on blighted land. But although they live apart, they die together; when one dies, it kills the other. Cass is one of the rare Omegas whose mutation isn’t visible: she is a seer, plagued by glimpses of the future, and by repeated visions of a mysterious island where an Omega resistance is growing. From early childhood she learns to disguise her difference, delaying the moment when she will be branded and sent away from her family. Unsplit, she and her twin, Zach, can’t assume their allotted roles in society, and so grow up isolated, intertwined by both closeness and resentment, until her deformity is finally revealed. Branded and sent away, she ekes out an existence at an Omega settlement, where over the next few years she hears rumours of Zach’s rise to the ruling Alpha council. When she is seventeen, Zach has her abducted and imprisoned to ensure his safety. After two years of imprisonment, Cass escapes, and uncovers her brother’s plans to ensure a world where Omegas can no longer be used against their Alpha counterparts. Cass heads for the fabled island to join the Omega resistance, but is she alone in her idealism that they can live peacefully side-by-side with the twins? And what will they do when they learn who her brother is? THE FIRE SERMON works as a standalone but Francesca has plotted out the remaining two books in the trilogy. Francesca Haig is in her 30s and lives in London with her husband. She achieved her PhD at the University of Melbourne, and is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chester, where she is also Programme Leader in Creative Writing. Her poetry and prose has been published in many literary journals and anthologies in both Australia and England, and has won various prizes. In 2010 she was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship. THE FIRE SERMON is her first novel. This is an incredible debut, which provokes many questions which will resonate with teens and adults alike. When is a freedom fighter a terrorist? Does society always need a scapegoat? Can killing one person to save the lives of many ever be a moral choice?