The Stars are Fire

In October 1947, a summer of drought leaves the Maine coast dry as tinder. Fires break out from Bar Harbor to Kittery and spread from town to village faster than anyone can stop them. Grace Holland is five months pregnant and alone with her two toddlers when her husband, Gene, goes off to join the volunteer firefighters.

Grace and her best friend, Rosie, who has two young children of her own, watch their houses burn to the ground. As the flames close in, the women take the children into the ocean as a last resort and spend the night there trying to keep them safe.

Morning brings homelessness and no money. Their husbands' fate is unknown, and the town they lived in is gone. In the wreckage, Grace finds a freedom she never expected from her narrow life with Gene, and a new confidence grows in her. Then something unthinkable happens, and her courage is tested again.

This is historical fiction built on the true story of the largest fire in Maine's history. It is a suspenseful novel that opens in the middle of a disaster and follows one woman through the aftermath, with loss and hard-won independence side by side.