Strange Fire

Gr 9 Up—Mankind's taste for knowledge and power grew too great. It is said that the Lord sent his only Daughter to destroy the world with fire. In the generations that followed, the few survivors came together to form a pacifistic and deeply religious community called the Descendancy. Brothers Clive and Clover Hamill, the sons of an honored traveling Descendant minister, live happily by the rules of their community. However, when the brothers travel with their family to spread the gospel to nearby villages, a profound series of events is put into motion. The Hamill brothers, along with Clive's childhood sweetheart, Gemma, and an anti-Descendant revolutionary named Paz, will be forced to navigate a maze of love, religion, death, and betrayal. Readers will discover an unforgettable world where faith seems to be the enemy of knowledge, where violence sometimes opposes ignorance, and where people are neither inherently "good" nor "bad." Despite lacking definitive answers, Wallach's latest is a haunting exploration of our world's struggles with religion, war, and learning. His deliberate and graceful writing tells a striking story of humanity through the viewpoints of Clover, Clive, Gemma, and Paz.