CCBC-Recommended Book Search - Cooperative Children's Book Center

A searchable database of books recommended by the CCBC.

(More information on CCBC book recommendations)

Mortal Fire

Sixteen-year-old Canny is a math prodigy and the daughter of Sisema Mochrie, a Ma’eu woman and New Zealand national hero who saved two downed airmen during World War II by paddling them in an outrigger 500 miles, avoiding capture by occupying Japanese forces. When her mother and stepfather take a trip to the Shackle Islands, where her mother grew up, Canny must accompany her older half-brother Sholto and his girlfriend Susan to a coal-mining town on the peninsula, where they are conducting oral history interviews. Canny, who has always been able to sense when magic is present, feels it as soon as they arrive. There’s a house she can see that Sholto and Susan cannot. In it she finds Ghislain Zarene. He looks like a seventeen-year-old boy but in reality is a man who’s been held captive and un-aging by his family’s magic for years. Slowly the story behind current events in the valley and an unsettling history unfold. Both involve a longstanding Zarene family tragedy and Canny’s relationship with her own mother. Elizabeth Knox has penned a rich, challenging historical fantasy that occupies the same alternate world as her earlier Dreamweaver duet. She weaves numerous strands into an intricate tapestry touching on multiple themes—gender, race, class, sexuality, honesty, loyalty, love. The growing sense of mystery and wonder is mesmerizing in a story that will satisfy readers eager to tackle a complex, ambitious work. © Cooperative Children's Book Center

CCBC Age Recommendation: Age 14 and older
Age Range: Grades 9-12 (Age 14 and older)
Format: Novel
Subjects: Magic Math and Mathematicians Oppression Racism Secrets
Diversity subjects: Asian Indigenous

Publishers: Farrar Straus Giroux, Frances Foster Books
Publish Year: 2013
Pages: 436
ISBN: 9780374388294

CCBC Location: Fiction, Knox

Mortal Fire