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If We Caught Fire
If We Caught Fire brings two families together for a wedding in St. John’s, an event that sets off a summer of fireworks in the lives of the people around them.
Edie’s calm and contained life is knocked awry when her mother decides to marry a man she met online after just a few months of dating. The groom’s son, Harlow, is a joyful adventurer who shows up for the wedding and quickly recruits Edie as his sidekick.
Harlow runs toward risk and adventure with arms wide open, unconcerned about what other people expect from him. Edie plans every step carefully and keeps her dreams small and attainable, even when others encourage her to want more. Over a few months, they develop a connection that defies definition, a situation that leaves Edie queasy with fear and tingly with possibility.
Edie and Harlow (and the rest of their new unwieldy family) do an elaborate dance, trying to discover just what they are to one another. When Edie thinks she’s figured him out, Harlow reveals a depth and darkness she didn’t see coming. By Labour Day, they’ve created connections, tested boundaries, and found they've come together and apart in unexpected ways.
Edie’s calm and contained life is knocked awry when her mother decides to marry a man she met online after just a few months of dating. The groom’s son, Harlow, is a joyful adventurer who shows up for the wedding and quickly recruits Edie as his sidekick.
Harlow runs toward risk and adventure with arms wide open, unconcerned about what other people expect from him. Edie plans every step carefully and keeps her dreams small and attainable, even when others encourage her to want more. Over a few months, they develop a connection that defies definition, a situation that leaves Edie queasy with fear and tingly with possibility.
Edie and Harlow (and the rest of their new unwieldy family) do an elaborate dance, trying to discover just what they are to one another. When Edie thinks she’s figured him out, Harlow reveals a depth and darkness she didn’t see coming. By Labour Day, they’ve created connections, tested boundaries, and found they've come together and apart in unexpected ways.
253 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 30, 2023
1 person is currently reading
29 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 22, 2024
3.5⭐️ rounded up
Loved reading about characters set in my hometown… it was easy to picture the settings, the streets, the bars, the random places. The plot was good and fairly unpredictable.
However, the ending was strangely abrupt and unexpected. I really didn’t love the writing style; her lack of use of quotation marks for dialogue was frustrating, and at times, slightly hard to follow.
Overall, though, a good read.
Loved reading about characters set in my hometown… it was easy to picture the settings, the streets, the bars, the random places. The plot was good and fairly unpredictable.
However, the ending was strangely abrupt and unexpected. I really didn’t love the writing style; her lack of use of quotation marks for dialogue was frustrating, and at times, slightly hard to follow.
Overall, though, a good read.
May 8, 2024
Finding fiction that is written about one’s hometown is always a bit of a gamble. If the narrative does not follow one’s own lived experience, the reader is likely to cry foul and declare the tale a creative misdemeanor. Thankfully, Beth Ryan’s IF WE CAUGHT FIRE does not suffer from this problem, mostly because Ryan’s skill as a writer is up to the task, but also because Ryan knows the city of St. John’s, Newfoundland, as intimately as a lover.
IF WE CAUGHT FIRE is, as other reviewers have said, a ‘slow burn’, but what a burn it is. From main character Edie’s unassuming origins as a plump child in a thin world that yearns to remake her, to her fully felt, hard-won adulthood, she shines. Always a little out of step with the current lifestyle trends, she is firmly an individual, a woman who might not know exactly what she wants but who gets there in the end.
Supporting characters are complex and multifaceted, most notably Max, Edie’s young half-brother, who sees the world with a sagacity and prescience quite beyond his years. The older adults in Edie’s life – her feckless father, Mike, and his new wife Trina (mother of the unwanted pseudo-sister Melissa, she of the irritating giggle and frequently tossed tresses) figure largely, but it’s Edie’s mother who arguably leaves the strongest impression. Finally Harlow, the Loki-like trickster figure who becomes Edie’s somewhat significant other, is devastatingly portrayed.
Despite a conclusion that appears with an unexpected abruptness, IF WE CAUGHT FIRE is a skilled and beautiful portrayal of characters who are so very like the people we might know. And, like these familiar denizens of our own lives, they continue to haunt the mind of the reader, long after the final page is turned.
IF WE CAUGHT FIRE is, as other reviewers have said, a ‘slow burn’, but what a burn it is. From main character Edie’s unassuming origins as a plump child in a thin world that yearns to remake her, to her fully felt, hard-won adulthood, she shines. Always a little out of step with the current lifestyle trends, she is firmly an individual, a woman who might not know exactly what she wants but who gets there in the end.
Supporting characters are complex and multifaceted, most notably Max, Edie’s young half-brother, who sees the world with a sagacity and prescience quite beyond his years. The older adults in Edie’s life – her feckless father, Mike, and his new wife Trina (mother of the unwanted pseudo-sister Melissa, she of the irritating giggle and frequently tossed tresses) figure largely, but it’s Edie’s mother who arguably leaves the strongest impression. Finally Harlow, the Loki-like trickster figure who becomes Edie’s somewhat significant other, is devastatingly portrayed.
Despite a conclusion that appears with an unexpected abruptness, IF WE CAUGHT FIRE is a skilled and beautiful portrayal of characters who are so very like the people we might know. And, like these familiar denizens of our own lives, they continue to haunt the mind of the reader, long after the final page is turned.
October 23, 2023
Each of us navigates the world in a certain manner...the protagonists in this story navigate through live in very different ways and their intersection will reveal how trauma can impact and manifest diverse responses.
Once I started reading this book and realized I was in for a story that would capture me. And capture me it did....
August 19, 2023
This is extremely well-crafted and engaging. The characters are all 3 dimensional and memorable. This novel is a great follow to her first book, "What is Invisible." I really couldn't put it down.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews