The Fire Child - Review

The Fire Child  🌟🌟🌟🌟

by S. K. Tremaine

Published  June 16 2016 by Harper Collins UK

Finished  11/1/16

I loved the setting of this story from the start, which  is Cornwall, near the old abandoned copper mines of the past--Wheal Rose, Wheal Chance, and dozens more...now in ruins, yet ever present....  I was constantly reminded of Poldark. 

Rachel has just married into  a wealthy family, a widower  with a small  son and elderly mother.  There in the huge family manor house  with a name (Carnhallow) are  constant reminders of Wife #1, the beautiful Nina who died too young in an accident.  Rachel is left to wander the rooms and the grounds while husband David spends every week lawyering in London.... Shades of Rebecca? 

OK, I'm hooked!  However... it's  not as simple as all that. There are also -- thank God I read this around Halloween -- shades of The Twilight Zone.

The 8 year old son Jamie has taken his mother's  death hard.  Rachel is challenged to make life normal again for the little fella.   But maybe his world cannot  be exactly  normal.   His mind seems  preoccupied, and Rachel witnesses him  talking to apparitions and dreaming of events yet to happen.  Who is he talking to when by himself?  What does he know about the night of his Mummy's  accident?  

A great start and a decent ending, but some of the middle  felt like it was coming completely apart, plummeting into uncharted territory. It kept me guessing. A big Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher.