> Skip to content
Read an extract
Play sample
  • Published: 12 November 2024
  • ISBN: 9780857529879
  • Imprint: Doubleday
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $29.99

Fire




From internationally bestselling author John Boyne, a challenging and visceral narrative that asks the question: can one cataclysmic moment turn someone into a monster?

On the face of it, Freya lives a gilded existence, dancing solely to her own tune. She has all the trappings of wealth and privilege, a responsible job as a surgeon specialising in skin grafts, a beautiful flat in a sought-after development, and a flash car. But it wasn’t always like this. Hers is a life founded on darkness.

Did what happened to Freya as a child one fateful summer influence the adult she would become – or was she always destined to be that person? Was she born with cruelty in her heart or did something force it into being?

In Fire, John Boyne takes the reader on a chilling, uncomfortable but utterly compelling psychological journey to the epicentre of the human condition, asking the age-old question: nurture – or nature?

  • Published: 12 November 2024
  • ISBN: 9780857529879
  • Imprint: Doubleday
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $29.99

About the author

John Boyne

John Boyne was born in Ireland in 1971. He is the author of eleven novels for adults, six for younger readers and a collection of short stories. Perhaps best known for his 2006 multi-award-winning book The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, John’s other novels, notably The Absolutist and A History of Loneliness, have been widely praised and are international bestsellers. Most recently, The Heart's Invisible Furies was a Richard & Judy Bookclub word-of-mouth bestseller, and A Ladder to the Sky was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award in association with Listowel Writers’ Week.

His novels are published in over fifty languages.

Also by John Boyne

See all

Praise for Fire

Boyne has found a neat framework for a series of original novels, linked as much by theme and image as by character and setting. Fire is an exhilarating read.

Spectator

You will hurtle through the book, because it is such a compelling story, so cleverly written.

Irish Examiner

Hypnotically clean, clear prose... powerful and memorable

Irish Times
penguin pop image
penguin pop image