The House Is on Fire

Contents Cover Title Page Dedication Epigraph Thursday: December 26, 1811 1. Sally 2. Cecily 3. Gilbert 4. Jack 5. Sally 6. Cecily 7. Gilbert 8. Jack 9. Gilbert 10. Cecily 11. Sally 12. Gilbert 13. Cecily Friday: December 27, 1811 14. Sally 15. Gilbert 16. Cecily 17. Sally 18. Jack 19. Gilbert 20. Cecily 21. Sally 22. Jack 23. Gilbert 24. Cecily 25. Sally 26. Jack 27. Gilbert 28. Cecily 29. Sally 30. Cecily 31. Jack 32. Gilbert 33. Sally 34. Gilbert 35. Jack 36. Sally 37. Gilbert 38. Sally 39. Jack 40. Sally 41. Cecily 42. Gilbert 43. Jack 44. Sally 45. Jack 46. Gilbert 47. Jack 48. Sally 49. Jack 50. Gilbert 51. Sally 52. Jack 53. Gilbert 54. Sally 55. Cecily 56. Jack 57. Gilbert Saturday: December 28, 1811 58. Sally 59. Jack 60. Gilbert 61. Cecily 62. Sally 63. Jack 64. Gilbert 65. Sally 66. Jack 67. Cecily 68. Gilbert 69. Cecily 70. Sally 71. Jack 72. Gilbert 73. Sally 74. Gilbert 75. Jack 76. Sally 77. Gilbert 78. Jack 79. Cecily 80. Sally 81. Jack 82. Gilbert Sunday: December 29, 1811 83. Gilbert 84. Cecily 85. Sally 86. Jack 87. Gilbert 88. Cecily 89. Jack 90. Sally 91. Jack 92. Gilbert 93. Jack 94. Sally 95. Cecily Author’s Note Acknowledgments About the Author Copyright Guide Cover Start of Content Title Page Dedication Author’s Note Epigraph Acknowledgments About the Author Copyright I II III V VI VII VIII 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 
 
 “The world is about to be on fire with the publication of The House Is On Fire.” —KATHLEEN GRISSOM, New York Times bestselling author of The Kitchen House
 The House Is on Fire
 A Novel by the author of Florence Adler Swims Forever
 Rachel Beanland
 
 
 
 
 
 PRAISE FOR THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE
 
 “Beanland’s characters must carry both their own sudden losses and contend with the collective grief of a community and the violent darkness of the era. Split-second decisions in the face of danger forever alter the trajectory of so many lives—The House Is On Fire is stunning in its breadth and scope of human strength and in its insistence on love amidst destruction. From fragments of half-told history, Beanland creates a world that is real, aching, dark, and true.”
 —KATIE RUNDE, author of The Shore
 “I whipped through this book as if the pages themselves were on fire. Heart pounding and suspenseful, this is unputdownable historical fiction at its finest. In The House Is On Fire, Rachel Beanland gives us a front-row seat to a terrifying nineteenth-century calamity and the fascinating cast of villains, heroes, and everyone in between who must confront it and cope with the aftermath. These characters have been seared into my memory and this story will stick with me.”
 —ELISE HOOPER, author of Angels of the Pacific
 “Beanland proves again that she is a master storyteller with a tight grasp of the historical record. Here, with both warm and exacting prose, she has breathed life back into a night of shocking tragedy for a young country, returning to the Richmond Theater fire and the terror and humanity lost by two centuries of forgetting. The depth and realism of her characters is matched only by the galloping pace of this novel, which is likely to sit with unease and beauty in the minds of readers for a long while.”
 —BRIAN CASTLEBERRY, author of Nine Shiny Objects
 “I could not turn the pages fast enough! An absolutely propulsive feat of storytelling! The House Is On Fire reveals the little-known events of an American tragedy of Titanic proportion. In heart-stopping, intimate detail Beanland transports us directly into the souls of a truly diverse cast of Virginians, whose varied means of survival during