The Fires

Volcanologist Anna Arnardóttir has it all. A husband that loves her, a family that makes her happy, a beautiful, spacious house in the suburbs, and a fulfilling job. She has been fascinated by geology and volcanology since she was little. Her father was also a prominent scientist in the field. When a series of earthquakes begin, things start to get complicated.

Overall, The Fires is a good novel and a very well-researched one. But there are so many places where the story dragged. Detailed descriptions of volcanic activity are scattered all over the book. If volcanology is your thing, this is an excellent book for you. However, it contains far too much detail for the average reader. Although volcanoes are an interesting topic, these descriptions often distracted me while reading this story.

 

Goodreads

Excerpt from the Book:

 

The mysterious ramblings of the north magnetic pole plague me as I lie half-awake, pretending to be asleep while I think about rolling groundswells in the bowels of the earth, her mantle tossing and turning like a sleeping dragon, like my husband who murmurs beside me and turns onto his side, reaching out to touch my shoulder in his sleep. Our alarms will go off soon, I can feel it even though my eyes are closed, can almost count down to the moment his phone will play its harp melody and then three minutes later when the sirens blare from mine loud enough to wake the dead on Doomsday and me on a Monday morning. I’m usually a deep sleeper—I make the most of my nights—but today I wake early from restless dreams about the north magnetic pole and the molten iron at the earth’s core that hounds it, driving it ever eastward. The earth’s mysterious, subterranean movements sometimes haunt me in my sleep: mantle convection, the plume that rises up under this island, stoked by the planet’s white-hot core. It drifts through my subconscious, having ensconced itself there long ago.

 

Details:

• author: Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir
• full title: The Fires
  
• genre: general fiction
  
• format/type: bookfiction
• country: Iceland
• topics: #vulcaniceruptions, #seizmicactivity
  
• publisher: Amazon Crossing
• publish date: 01 Feb 2023
• pages: 300
  

My Rating of the Book:

• content: 💙💙💙

 

About the Author: 

Icelandic author Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir (1974) studied history in Reykjavík and Salamanca and journalism at Columbia University in New York and previously worked in Copenhagen before moving back to Reykjavík, where she lives with her husband, children, and stepchildren. Her bestselling debut, Island (2016), was nominated for the Icelandic Women’s Literature Prize in 2017. When she isn’t writing, Sigríður works as a journalist and television news anchor at the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service. Her highly anticipated third novel, The Fires, is a bestseller and viral hit in Iceland.