Other Fires – a Review

Joss and Phil are already growing apart, their marriage is on rocky ground, and then his head injury from boards falling on him during the fire complicates things even more.

Terpe, their eight-year-old daughter, is awakened by the fire ravaging their home and rescues the baby. Because of her screams, the rest of them are saved. But her dad, Phil, is injured while trying to escape.

Phil’s injury makes an already bad situation worse. He is diagnosed with Capgras delusion, a misidentification syndrome in which a person becomes convinced that a loved one has been replace by an identical imposter. That sounds like something out of a movie where aliens are slowly replacing people with imposters, but it is a real thing. So Phil doesn’t recognize his wife for who she really is. His girlfriend? Yeah, he recognizes her and doesn’t believe she is an imposter.

Of course, being called an imposter by her own husband hurts Joss. She finds comfort in the arms of Adam, hired to help with repairs from the fire and landscaping. Even though before the fire Phil had been a philanderer, this leads to Joss feeling guilty. She does wonder though if one of his many girlfriends was behind their house being set on fire. Arson is suspected because footprints and a rag soaked in gasoline were found.

Phil does recognize Terpe, but while he is recovering from his injuries, she discovers some things about him she doesn’t like. Before long, she ends up resenting both of her parents, her mom for becoming involved with another man and her dad for having a girlfriend.

This character-driven story shows what an already unstable family could experience in the event of such a tragedy. The characters are well-deveoloped, giving the reader insight as to why each one acts the way they do.

Since I once experienced a traumatic brain injury, I found this novel fascinating. I did not have the misfortune of suffering from Capgras delusion—and for that I am thankful—but it really opened my eyes to something that could have happened.

I was sent a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. If you would like to read this captivating novel for yourself, I’ve provided an Amazon link for you below.

Amazon Link: Other Fires

Recommended Article: Lenore Gay Interview – Capgras, Shelter of Leaves, and Advice for Writers

Favorite Sentences:

Did the fire eat him up, like a giant sticking a boy into a bonfire turning him, roasting him, and gobbling him up?

Phil knew this sentence wasn’t a trick, but more like a strategy that had become a battering ram to pound him into conceding the imposter must be his wife.

The car door opened, the man mumbling something under his breath, and though he said words, she heard monster noise.

He imagined laughing when her eyes popped out of her head and all the blood poured out of her eye sockets.

New Words Learned:

ribald – vulgar or indecent in speech, language, etc.; coarsely mocking, abusive, or irreverent; scurrilous

mullion windows – Have you ever been trying to look out a window, but your view was partially blocked by a thick, vertical beam of some sort? It’s frustrating when this happens, but even more frustrating when you don’t know what to call the stupid thing. Well, it’s called a mullion. In window design, a mullion is a vertical divider that breaks apart the opening.

https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-a-mullion-window.html

ubiquitous – existing or being everywhere, especially at the same time; omnipresent

About the Author:

Lenore Gay is a retired Licensed Professional Counselor. Near retirement she worked at her ten-year private counseling practice and later as the Coordinator of the Internship Program at the Rehabilitation Counseling Department, Virginia Commonwealth University.

Her debut novel, Shelter of Leaves, was published in August 2016. The book was a finalist for the Foreword Book of the Year and a finalist for an INDEFAB award. Her second novel, Other Fires, was published October 2020. Currently she is writing two novels. She is working on a final edit for one manuscript and also starting a new work.

The Virginia Center for Creative Arts (VCCA) has awarded her two writing fellowships. Her short story “The Hobo” won first place in a fiction contest hosted by Richmond’s Style Weekly. Her essay “Mistresses of Magic” was published in the anthology In Praise of our Teachers. A recent essay, “My First Mentor” was published in the anthology Us Against Alzheimers.

For three years she served on the steering committee of the RVALitCrawl. Each year more than 70 writers read in venues around Richmond, Virginia. For many years she volunteered as a reader and editor at Blackbird, an online journal for literature & the arts, a publication of Virginia Commonwealth University. She is an active member of James River Writers.

Website: lenoregay.com
Facebook: facebook.com/lenoregay.author/
Twitter: twitter.com/lenore_gay