Fire Color One

Fire Color One by Jenny Valentine is a unique story about love, loss, art, and family. Sixteen-year-old Iris wants nothing to do with her estranged father, but he is dying, and her mother is determined that Iris visit, play nice, and earn herself a nice inheritance; supposedly his art collection is worth millions. So when Iris gets in trouble for arson, yet again, her mother uses her delinquency as an excuse to whisk her off to her father’s estate. Over the next several days, Iris is surprised to learn that everything she thought she knew about her father was a lie. While Iris’s mother and her mother’s boyfriend occasionally come across as caricatures–people so obsessed with their appearances and catching their “big break” in the entertainment industry that they literally pose any time they enter a room–Iris herself is realistically complex. She experiences a compelling character arc as she slowly but steadily builds a relationship with her father and they bond over a love of art. In the end, however, the story may not be so much about familial relationships as it is about the characters turning the tables on each other and the readers with some surprising plot twists.