Search
Log in
  • Home

  • Categories

  • Audiobooks

  • E-books

  • For kids

  • Top lists

  • Help

  • Download app

  • Use campaign code

  • Redeem gift card

  • Try free now
  • Log in
  • Language

    🇳🇴 Norge

    • NO
    • EN

    🇧🇪 Belgique

    • FR
    • EN

    🇩🇰 Danmark

    • DK
    • EN

    🇩🇪 Deutschland

    • DE
    • EN

    🇪🇸 España

    • ES
    • EN

    🇫🇷 France

    • FR
    • EN

    🇳🇱 Nederland

    • NL
    • EN

    🇦🇹 Österreich

    • AT
    • EN

    🇨🇭 Schweiz

    • DE
    • EN

    🇫🇮 Suomi

    • FI
    • EN

    🇸🇪 Sverige

    • SE
    • EN
  1. Books
  2. Fiction
  3. Contemporary fiction

Read and listen for free for 14 days!

Cancel anytime

Try free now
0.0(0)

The House Is on Fire

A “wildly entertaining” (NPR), “gripping” (The Washington Post) work of historical fiction about an incendiary tragedy that shocked a young nation and tore apart a community in a single night, from the author of Florence Adler Swims Forever.

Richmond, Virginia 1811. It’s the height of the winter social season, the General Assembly is in session, and many of Virginia’s gentleman planters, along with their wives and children, have made the long and arduous journey to the capital in hopes of whiling away the darkest days of the year. At the city’s only theater, the Charleston-based Placide & Green Company puts on two plays a night to meet the demand of a populace that’s done looking for enlightenment at the front of a church.

On the night after Christmas, the theater is packed with more than six hundred holiday revelers. In the third-floor boxes sits newly widowed Sally Henry Campbell, who is glad for any opportunity to relive the happy times she shared with her husband. One floor away, in the colored gallery, Cecily Patterson doesn’t give a whit about the play but is grateful for a four-hour reprieve from a life that has recently gone from bad to worse. Backstage, young stagehand Jack Gibson hopes that, if he can impress the theater’s managers, he’ll be offered a permanent job with the company. And on the other side of town, blacksmith Gilbert Hunt dreams of one day being able to bring his wife to the theater, but he’ll have to buy her freedom first.

When the theater goes up in flames in the middle of the performance, Sally, Cecily, Jack, and Gilbert make a series of split-second decisions that will not only affect their own lives but those of countless others. And in the days following the fire, as news of the disaster spreads across the United States, the paths of these four people will become forever intertwined.

Based on the true story of Richmond’s theater fire, The House Is on Fire is a “stunning” (Jeannette Walls, New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle), “all-consuming exploration” (E! News) that offers proof that sometimes, in the midst of great tragedy, we are offered our most precious—and fleeting—chances at redemption.


Author:

  • Rachel Beanland

Narrators:

  • Joniece Abbott-Pratt
  • Andi Arndt
  • Michael Crouch
  • Ruffin Prentiss III
  • Rachel Beanland

Format:

  • Audiobook
  • E-book

Duration:

  • 12 h 28 min
  • 304 pages

Language:

English

Categories:

  • Fiction
  • Contemporary fiction
  • Historic and folklore novels
  • Historic novels

More by Rachel Beanland

Skip the list
  1. Florence Adler Swims Forever : A Novel

    Rachel Beanland

    book
  2. Florence Adler Swims Forever: A Novel

    Rachel Beanland

    audiobook

Others have also read

Skip the list
  1. Twenty-Seven Bones

    Jonathan Nasaw

    book
  2. The Fall: A Novel

    John Lescroart

    book
  3. Invisible

    Tom Lowe

    audiobook
  4. The Girl from Greenwich Street : A Novel of Hamilton, Burr, and America’s First Murder Trial

    Lauren Willig

    audiobook
  5. All He'll Ever Need

    Loree Lough

    audiobook
  6. The Girl in the Dark : A totally unputdownable emotional drama

    Deirdre Palmer

    audiobook
  7. The Revenge Pact

    Liz Mistry

    audiobook
  8. False Flag : Christopher Wren Thrillers Book 4

    Mike Grist

    audiobook
  9. Father's Day : The gripping new revenge thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author

    Richard Madeley

    audiobookbook
  10. The Sisters

    Helen Matthews

    audiobook
  11. Twelve

    Dustin Stevens

    audiobook
  12. Someone Like You : An absolutely unputdownable psychological thriller

    Becky Alexander

    audiobook

  • 3 books

    Rachel Beanland

    Rachel Beanland is the author of the novel Florence Adler Swims Forever. She is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and earned her MFA in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University. She lives with her husband and three children in Richmond, Virginia. She has taught creative writing at the College of William & Mary and Virginia Commonwealth University and is the 2023–2024 Writer in Residence at the University of Richmond.

    Read more

Help and contact


About us

  • Our story
  • Career
  • Press
  • Accessibility
  • Partner with us
  • Investor relations
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

Explore

  • Categories
  • Audiobooks
  • E-books
  • Magazines
  • For kids
  • Top lists

Popular categories

  • Crime
  • Biographies and reportage
  • Fiction
  • Feel-good and romance
  • Personal development
  • Children's books
  • True stories
  • Sleep and relaxation

Nextory

Copyright © 2025 Nextory AB

Privacy Policy · Terms ·
Excellent4.3 out of 5