Trial by Fire

by Sheila Dalton

Seventeen year-old Nathan is running - running from his past and running from his present. Raised by a white mother and never having known his native father, he must cope with prejudice and stereotypes. When he meets Sally, the beautiful outsider, he finds someone who believes in him. But when Sally's house is put to the torch by an arsonist, suspicion falls on Nathan and he finds himself embroiled in an intrigue and murder that threaten to drive the two teenagers apart.

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

I love to read more than I love to write, but I love both. I was born in England, but have lived in Canada, with small breaks, since I was six.
I currently live in Newmarket, a town near Toronto, Ontario, where I spend my days gardening, meditating, taking care of two cats, cooking (I love to cook)and cooking up stories!
I've worked as a barmaid in England, an art gallery assistant, a freelance editor and writer, and a reference librarian in Toronto. I had a wild and woolly youth, but I was married to the same man for thirty-five years, before his untimely and sudden death in 2012. I still miss him.
Behaving myself has not always been easy.
I've spent many years studying and practising Vipassana (Insight) Meditation, which has taken me places I would never have dreamed existed.
I've traveled to France, lived and studied in England, spent time in Latin America and Morocco. Travel is where many of my story ideas come from.
My husband was half Cree, and was the inspiration for my YA mystery, Trial by Fire.
I don't know what else to tell you about me. Oh, yes, I studied English Language and Literature at the University of Toronto and the University of London,England, and I love to sing and dance.

Reviews

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote this book in 1998. It was inspired by stories my husband told me about how his father, a full-blooded Cree, faced prejudice simply because he was Native Canadian. I also liked the idea of dark-skinned Indian-looking Nathan having a very blonde, very pale girlfriend. Times are different now, but I'm old enough to remember how the only Black student at my high school was treated by the adult generation after he began dating a blonde beauty in his class.
Trial by Fire is recommended by the Canadian Children's Book Centre, and was a finalist for the Arthur Ellis, Canada's major crime writing award.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is about 17 year old Nathan, who soon finds himself being suspected of setting his girlfriend Sally’s home on fire. Nathan know that with his past with the police, they already think he’s trouble, so they would have no trouble believing that he would set this fire. The truth is though, he didn’t do it.

When Nathan met Sally he totally felt that she understood him, like no one else did. He felt really alone when his mother and him often faught . It was a rocky relationship to say the least. Nathan’s mom was an alcoholic and when she got into her drinking binges, it was always Nathan who ended up looking after his younger siblings. When she was like that, she often blamed Nathan for all of her troubles, so much so, he started to believe it.

With everything that Nathan was going through, he had a lot of anger issues and acted out
quite often. On this one day when Nathan decides to pull the switch on a train track as a joke just thinking that it would make the train head in the wrong direction, little did he know or think about the possibility of another on coming train from the opposite direction. Unfortunately there was a train, but luckily no one was injured. Nathan’s mom had the last straw with him and told him she couldn’t deal with him any more, which hurt Nathan to the core.

Nathan was than sent to Children’s Aide, where he was placed in a group home where things really didn’t work out for him. The Whitmore’s didn’t pay much attention to Nathan, other than to make sure he did all their chores. At the beginning Clive, Nathan’s foster father, just mainly ignored him unless he had work he wanted to do on the farm. Then something changed with Clive first it was just verbal abuse and tearing Nathan down for no reason, and unfortunately Helen, Nathan’s foster mother was afraid of Clive herself, really couldn’t or wouldn’t stand up to Clive to make him stop, Nathan was alone. To make matters worse, Clive was white and a racist, and because Nathan was just half white and half native, Clive always had to have some discriminating remark or comment about Nathan.

When Nathan’s social worker suspects that something is going on at the Whitmore’s home to Nathan she tries to talk to him about it, but Nathan doesn’t trust anyone, so he denies that anything is going on at the house.

When Clive finally loses it on Nathan and really beats him up, Nathan has had enough and he finally admits to his social worker what was really happening in the house. She then removes him from the house where he then goes and stays with Sally and her family.

When Sally’s house is set on fire, the police have it set in their minds that Nathan is the arsonist. There only problem is that they don’t have proof. Nathan would never do anything to harm Sally or family. Sally tells Nathan she knows he do it. They decide to an investigation of their own. Nathan soon starts to realize that Sally acting really different around him, but he just can’t figure out why. When he tries to speak to Sally about it, she just tries to change the subject completely, or always has a quick answer, but Nathan just figures she will tell him in time, so he doesn’t push too hard.

One night Nathan hears his foster brother Brad talking to someone on the phone and it sounded like he was afraid of whoever he was speaking with so when Brad leaves the house Nathan decides to follow him. He has a suspicion that Brad’s so called friends were the ones to set the fire. When Nathan finally catches up to see where Brad was going, he’s unfortunately spotted by these so called friends of Brads. They beat him up pretty badly, but luckily Sally ended up following Nathan and was able to call the police, and they were able to catch Brad and he bully friends.

When Nathan wakes up in the hospital, he finds Sally sitting with him in his room. Nathan finally hears the truth from Sally. The truth was that she set the fire herself. The home needed renovations so that her sick aunt could live with them, but they couldn’t afford it, so Sally thought if she set the fire, and assuming she wasn’t caught, they’d get the insurance and could do the renovations needs so her aunt could stay.

Nathan was hurt and angry but he loved Sally, and he could see it in her eyes that she truly never even meant for Nathan to be involved or suspected in any way. He loved her and he couldn’t just turn his feelings off. He forgives her.

Surprisingly to Nathan, his mom comes to visit him while he’s in the hospital. She finally is honest with Nathan. Nathan is finally to let go of his anger towards his mom. He’s really missing his brother’s and sister’s. Mrs. Magnani tells Nathan that his mom has actually been doing a lot better getting herself together, and joining a AA group. She wants Nathan to come home if he agrees to stop getting into trouble. She knows how much she’d hurt him but she would like another chance to be in his life.

Nathan agrees to go live with his mom and start a new life. He was considering going to learn about becoming a healer and accepting part of his heritage, that he never would before. Nathan was finally at a place in his life where he felt like he had choices in his life, and it felt good!

[Amy Mathers · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://amysmarathonofbooks.ca/trial-b...

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did my best, and like this book, but if I wrote it today, I'd do better! It was a finalist for Canada's major Crime Writing award, in the YA category.