This book was my best surprise of the year. To be honest, I just picked up a random book from my shelf. I decided that I would just take a very un-calculated risk and pick up whatever book my eyes went to - and this book was it.

Fire Sermon is an incredible novel following the journey of a religious woman who begins to have an affair on her husband. The narrative is not your typical romance novel, it's truly a dramatic unfolding of the character. I loved this character study and how beautifully Jamie Quatro could write out this woman's feelings and experiences. Seriously, it blew me out of the water. I truly did not expect this book to be half as good as it was.

Jamie Quatro has a beautiful writing style, full of metaphors and truly engaging descriptions. This book could have been a real flop because of the subject matter, but it had me hooked at every single word. There isn't one thing I would change about this book because it truly was just mesmerizing. I highly recommend it! I'm almost frustrated that I didn't read it sooner! This is one incredible, lovely and amazing piece of literature that I think anyone who loves drama and riveting reads should pick up.

Maggie has a 'romantic' relationship with her husband, but begins to fall in love with an intellectual poet. She's cheating on her husband, but doesn't know how to deal with it. The sex with her husband isn't all that great and it hurts, but she feels like she owes him his pleasure. The more she engages in infidelity, the more she questions herself. Can someone truly fall out of love or change their feelings about someone? Will God understand what she has done?

Even if you're not religious, I think this book is an excellent view into one woman's perspective. Yes, it's fiction but it does really open your eyes to another world. The struggles and changes in a woman's life can be more troublesome than one thinks and I loved that Jamie opened us into Maggie's world. The story is absolutely breathtaking.

Five out of five stars.

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads. ( )

This book was my best surprise of the year. To be honest, I just picked up a random book from my shelf. I decided that I would just take a very un-calculated risk and pick up whatever book my eyes went to - and this book was it.

Fire Sermon is an incredible novel following the journey of a religious woman who begins to have an affair on her husband. The narrative is not your typical romance novel, it's truly a dramatic unfolding of the character. I loved this character study and how beautifully Jamie Quatro could write out this woman's feelings and experiences. Seriously, it blew me out of the water. I truly did not expect this book to be half as good as it was.

Jamie Quatro has a beautiful writing style, full of metaphors and truly engaging descriptions. This book could have been a real flop because of the subject matter, but it had me hooked at every single word. There isn't one thing I would change about this book because it truly was just mesmerizing. I highly recommend it! I'm almost frustrated that I didn't read it sooner! This is one incredible, lovely and amazing piece of literature that I think anyone who loves drama and riveting reads should pick up.

Maggie has a 'romantic' relationship with her husband, but begins to fall in love with an intellectual poet. She's cheating on her husband, but doesn't know how to deal with it. The sex with her husband isn't all that great and it hurts, but she feels like she owes him his pleasure. The more she engages in infidelity, the more she questions herself. Can someone truly fall out of love or change their feelings about someone? Will God understand what she has done?

Even if you're not religious, I think this book is an excellent view into one woman's perspective. Yes, it's fiction but it does really open your eyes to another world. The struggles and changes in a woman's life can be more troublesome than one thinks and I loved that Jamie opened us into Maggie's world. The story is absolutely breathtaking.

Five out of five stars.

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads. ( )

Life is messy. And sometimes we make it messier still. Take Margaret – or Maggie, to her friends. She comes from a well-off and tight-knit family which has given her a comfortable and solid upbringing. Raised an Evangelical, she remains a committed Christian into adulthood. Indeed, her approach to religion is quite intellectual, with a lively interest in comparative religions (and particularly the contrast between Western and Eastern faiths), early Church fathers and mysticism. Maggie is an academic, “nerdy” type – she graduates with flying colours in her early twenties. At around the same time she marries Thomas, choosing to abandon the prospects of a glittering career to dedicate time to her new family. She does keep contacts in academia though, retains modest teaching posts over the years and also tries her hand at creative writing, particularly poetry. As for Thomas, he’s a successful professional, an all-round decent guy and a good-looking one at that, the type of man who gladly helps out with their son and daughter, who would never cheat on his wife and who makes Maggie’s female friends rather jealous. The cherry on the cake is an unexpected legacy from a rich uncle which makes what seems an already charmed life even easier, enabling Thomas and Maggie to settle down comfortably in Nashville with their kids.

Could there be a marriage as strong and stable as Maggie’s? It seems not. But in her forties, Maggie embarks on a correspondence with James, a (married) poet who shares her spiritual and literary concerns. And what starts as a seemingly innocent exchange of emails eventually leads to a physical encounter, consummated with a passion that Maggie has never known with her husband. This experience is so beautiful to Maggie that she finds she cannot condemn her actions, even whilst seeking to save her marriage to another man she also loves, and whilst struggling to remain true to her principles and Christian values.

This is Jamie Quatro’s first novel, following the publication of an acclaimed collection of stories some years back. And what a breathtaking debut it is. What I particularly enjoyed is its original and yet beguiling storytelling approach, which seems to draw us effortlessly into Maggie’s mental struggles. Maggie is clearly the protagonist and she remains the focal point throughout the novel. Yet the perspective seems to be constantly shifting, thanks to continuous changes in the narrative mode. There are passages in the first person, others in a more “objective” (is it?) third person; there are flashbacks and flashforwards, passages of dialogue, extracts from journals, prayers; there’s a lot of philosophy and theology; there are what seem to be transcripts of counselling sessions (although they could be read as Maggie arguing with herself, or with God); there’s poetry – and I mean actual poems, not poetic writing (although there’s much of that too). And, towards the end, there’s the “Fire Sermon” itself, Maggie’s defiant statement/confession/manifesto about sin, temptation, God, marriage, love. All these seem to be pieces of a mosaic which build into an intriguing psychological, emotional portrait.

The novel works at many levels. It is, in essence, a love story (or two of them rolled into one). It is a family saga with elements of a coming-of-age novel. But it is also a book rich in philosophical insights about religion(s), about how faith informs the life of practising Christians and about how these same believers can convince themselves that they are in the right, even when acting against religious tenets they hold dear. You might not agree with Maggie’s choices or with her theology. No problem – she is herself often contradictory and admits as much. But her spiritual journey is the stuff of great novels. I’m ready to bet that this will be one of the most talked-about debuts in the coming year.

A copy of this book was kindly provided by the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review ( )

The audio narrator was good but the story was just too slow and off kilter. I had a hard time deciding if she was having exhaustive conversations with herself, with God, with herself talking for God. ( )

Life is messy. And sometimes we make it messier still. Take Margaret – or Maggie, to her friends. She comes from a well-off and tight-knit family which has given her a comfortable and solid upbringing. Raised an Evangelical, she remains a committed Christian into adulthood. Indeed, her approach to religion is quite intellectual, with a lively interest in comparative religions (and particularly the contrast between Western and Eastern faiths), early Church fathers and mysticism. Maggie is an academic, “nerdy” type – she graduates with flying colours in her early twenties. At around the same time she marries Thomas, choosing to abandon the prospects of a glittering career to dedicate time to her new family. She does keep contacts in academia though, retains modest teaching posts over the years and also tries her hand at creative writing, particularly poetry. As for Thomas, he’s a successful professional, an all-round decent guy and a good-looking one at that, the type of man who gladly helps out with their son and daughter, who would never cheat on his wife and who makes Maggie’s female friends rather jealous. The cherry on the cake is an unexpected legacy from a rich uncle which makes what seems an already charmed life even easier, enabling Thomas and Maggie to settle down comfortably in Nashville with their kids.

Could there be a marriage as strong and stable as Maggie’s? It seems not. But in her forties, Maggie embarks on a correspondence with James, a (married) poet who shares her spiritual and literary concerns. And what starts as a seemingly innocent exchange of emails eventually leads to a physical encounter, consummated with a passion that Maggie has never known with her husband. This experience is so beautiful to Maggie that she finds she cannot condemn her actions, even whilst seeking to save her marriage to another man she also loves, and whilst struggling to remain true to her principles and Christian values.

This is Jamie Quatro’s first novel, following the publication of an acclaimed collection of stories some years back. And what a breathtaking debut it is. What I particularly enjoyed is its original and yet beguiling storytelling approach, which seems to draw us effortlessly into Maggie’s mental struggles. Maggie is clearly the protagonist and she remains the focal point throughout the novel. Yet the perspective seems to be constantly shifting, thanks to continuous changes in the narrative mode. There are passages in the first person, others in a more “objective” (is it?) third person; there are flashbacks and flashforwards, passages of dialogue, extracts from journals, prayers; there’s a lot of philosophy and theology; there are what seem to be transcripts of counselling sessions (although they could be read as Maggie arguing with herself, or with God); there’s poetry – and I mean actual poems, not poetic writing (although there’s much of that too). And, towards the end, there’s the “Fire Sermon” itself, Maggie’s defiant statement/confession/manifesto about sin, temptation, God, marriage, love. All these seem to be pieces of a mosaic which build into an intriguing psychological, emotional portrait.

The novel works at many levels. It is, in essence, a love story (or two of them rolled into one). It is a family saga with elements of a coming-of-age novel. But it is also a book rich in philosophical insights about religion(s), about how faith informs the life of practising Christians and about how these same believers can convince themselves that they are in the right, even when acting against religious tenets they hold dear. You might not agree with Maggie’s choices or with her theology. No problem – she is herself often contradictory and admits as much. But her spiritual journey is the stuff of great novels. I’m ready to bet that this will be one of the most talked-about debuts in the coming year.

A copy of this book was kindly provided by the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review ( )