The Fire Rose

By Mercedes Lackey

Rosalind Hawkins is a medieval scholar from a fine family in Chicago, unfortunately, her professor father has speculated away the family money and died, leaving young Rosalind with no fortune and no future. Desolate with grief, forced to cut her education short, she agrees to go west to take a job as a governess to a wealthy man in San Francisco. However, when she arrives, she finds that there are no children at all: only a man who wishes her to read to him through a speaking tube. As she takes on the strange task of translating and reading aloud to her employer, she finds many mysteries to be solved; her employer being one of them. As she comes to know him she finds a keen mind and wit akin to her own. But when Rose discovers his secret and the bitter pain that comes with it, will she be able to find a way to help the man who took her out of poverty before he destroys himself?

This was one of the most original ‘Beauty and the Beast’ type books I’ve read to date. It was however highly disturbing in many ways. I would suggest if you read it to skip chapters 5 and 12. They deal with the man-servant Paul du-mond, who is the most unsavory and vile of characters. This book was strange to say the least and had a lot of anti-religion in it, and dealt mostly with ‘logic’ despite the fact that it had magic in it. I felt like I was reading a witch-craft book and it was just odd. I didn’t like it very much, and it was far too…something for me. It was just too much. I don’t recommend it.