The Fires by Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir

 

The Fires by Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir.

Translated by Lariassa Kyzer.

Published 1st February 2023 by Amazon Crossing.

From the cover of the book:

After an eight-hundred-year slumber, the volcanoes in Iceland’s most populated region are showing signs of life. Earthquakes dominate the headlines. Echoes of the devastating eruptions in the past stir unease in the people.

Volcanologist Anna Arnardóttir has spent her entire life studying the volcanic powers under the earth’s crust, but even she cannot fathom the catastrophe at hand.

As a series of eruptions threaten most of Iceland’s population, she’s caught off her rational guard by the most terrible natural disaster of all―love. The world as she knows it is about to fall apart, and so is her heart.

Caught between the safety of a nation and her feelings for her children, her lover, and her past, Anna embarks on a dangerous journey to save the lives of the people she loves―and her soul.

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It is my absolute pleasure to bring you an extract from The Fires by Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir, as part of the blog tour. Enjoy!

Extract from The Fires by Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir 

This is how it ends.

The earth envelops me, with all her eons, all her 4.5 billion years.

Her weight presses down upon me, steadily and without pity, like the beating of her blazing heart. Laws that spare no one, the dawn of life and its dusk. I am in her power, an insect in her dark, velvety palm.

I try to move my head, but it doesn’t budge. I open my eyes and close them, full of

darkness, once again. Best to keep them closed, to concentrate on just doing that.

Don’t think.

Don’t let my mind wander to the thought that I’m dead, that this is what it’s like to be dead.

It’s not an unreasonable conclusion to draw. And it would solve a lot. Spare me the decisions, be a perfect excuse not to face the things I’ve done. No more sleepless nights, no more tears, no more regret.

Nothing, never, not ever again.

Dust I am, and to dust I shall return, but my mind refuses to let go. It continues its obsessive maundering about the end of the world, projecting images of houses crumbling into black fissures, hovering for a moment on the brink before sinking slowly sideways, settling into the fire with a heavy sigh. Furniture, paintings, photo albums, pianos, microwaves—everything vanishes under the black tongue that protrudes from this red jaw, slithers across the land and destroys every- thing in its path. All the memories and caresses, the children’s drawings and dutifully vacuumed carpets—everything submits to its insatiable hunger and vanishes into the darkness.

It’s beautiful, don’t you think?

Your voice echoes in my head as though you’re right here beside me, your face glows with childlike enthusiasm. You smile at me, and your eyes are full of laughter; my mind knows it’s an illusion, knows you’re not here, but my heart sings with joy anyway, then breaks in that selfsame moment. But at least I got to love.

Stop this, I say to myself. Stop reminiscing and remembering and missing. Stop hyperventilating and wasting what little oxygen you have left—be rational, woman. Put that brilliant mind of yours to use, Homo sapiens—you, the so-called crown of creation. What good is logic to you now? Here you lie, curled like a worm in the womb of the earth, a mouse beneath the moss. An overgrown brain swollen with memo- ries and facts and regrets, formulas and decimals and information and dreams, your worst presumption being that you could differentiate them, that you, in your great wisdom, would be able to fathom the universe. You, who couldn’t even understand your own heart, its simple, universal laws.

This is where it ends, but it’s not where it began.

It all started last winter. Remember?

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The Fires is available to buy now in hardcover, paperback, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Amazon Crossing for sending me a hardback copy of this book, and to FMcM Associates for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Icelandic author Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir studied history in Reykjavík and Salamanca and journalism at Columbia University in New York. She worked in Copenhagen before moving back to Reykjavík, where she lives with her husband, children, and stepchildren. 

Her bestselling debut, Island (2016), was nominated for the Icelandic Women’s Literature Prize in 2017. 

When she isn’t writing, Björnsdóttir works as a journalist and television news anchor at the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service. Björnsdóttir’s highly anticipated third novel, The Fires, is a bestseller and viral hit in Iceland.