Forever Fire

The hallmark of novels by Ann Sawyer is the depth of insight and understanding that she brings to her characters and plots. With compassion and empathy, she weaves the many complex strands that truly reflect our lives, bringing the reader into a deeper, meaningful experience. Ann Sawyer’s background as a long term psychotherapist contributes greatly to the richness and beauty of her stories.
The heroine, Grace Ingalls, loved the north woods of Wisconsin, accepting her life of teaching school and caring for her mother, Ann, who’s been lost in her own world since Grace’s early childhood. Her father, Tom, preferred to keep to the old ways of hunting and trapping so that he was rarely around.
Into the quiet certainty of her life, childhood friend Luke Garnet returns, not as the gangling youth she remembers, but as an attractive and virile man. Grace longs for the companionship of her old friend, while the strong attraction she feels disconcerts her. As a child who witnessed her mother only coming to life under the deft love making of her father, Grace vowed never to fall in love, believing it would lead her to Ann’s same madness. Luke, sensitive to his friend’s skittishness, holds back his passion to a few stolen kisses. The two then build a new, even stronger friendship.
When Luke was called back east, he proposed marriage to Grace, sure that his love was returned. Grace refused him, denying all the love and attraction she felt for him. Passions flamed, the two first made love, then fought bitterly. Angry and bitter, Luke left for the east, with Grace miserable yet trying to return to her previous contentment.
The summer of 1871 was unusually hot and dry in upper Midwest, tormenting everyone. It was on one day in October, when the whole area was covered by fire, that Luke returned to Wisconsin. Heroically, he saved as many as he could in town before venturing into the fire with a team of horses and a wagon in search of Grace. Seeing someone lying beside the road, Luke stopped and gently picked Grace up, taking her back to friend in the nearby town for care. As Grace lay unconscious, Luke continued to go into the fire and the burnt areas, looking for survivors. He found Graces’ parents still holding each other near a freshly mound of earth. Digging, he retrieved two trunks that Tom and Ann had spent their last hours burying.
Grace slowly recovers, unaware that it was Luke who rescued her or even that he was staying in the same house. Before he could once again approach Grace, she was whisked off to Boston by an aunt she didn’t even know existed. She had never dreamed that her mother came from a wealthy family and that she was now an heiress. Feeling she had nothing else, Grace tried to embrace her new life in Boston.
Angry and bitter that Grace had gone, Luke returns to his family business in New York, even less willing to court any woman, much to his family’s dismay. Through his aunt, he learns that Grace is also unhappy and in Boston. He goes there with small hope. Arriving at a men’s club, he learns of a wager about a young woman who keeps all men at a distance. Luke takes the challenge to gain three dances with this beauty before he realizes the woman is Grace.
At the ball Luke finds Grace and the two dance. Alternating between their longing and their fears, they hold fast to each other through many dances. Love wins out as the two arrange for Luke to call on Grace and her family the next day. Still, the path to love is not easy. Their love is fired to gold in the crucible; Grace learns of the bet and feels betrayed and Luke encounters the ugly face of jealousy. In the end, love triumphs.
This is a very good read with many interesting characters, settings and subplots. Grace’s and Luke’s journey to love is in the foreground, and behind are the stories of other couples’ journeys to love, most especially the love that Tom and Ann had for each other, despite her madness.