The Fire Starters

**WINNER of the EU Prize for Literature**

'One of the most exciting and original Northern Irish writers of her generation' SUNDAY TIMES

'Gripping, affecting, surprising. I inhaled it' LISA MCINERNEY

'Captivating, intelligent and courageous' IRISH TIMES

'Spectacular. At once grittily real, wildly magical and insanely alluring - a siren-song of a novel. DONAL RYAN

'Jan Carson seems to have invented a new Belfast in this gripping, surprising, exhilarating novel. RODDY DOYLE

'A brilliant, wry novel, fizzing with energy.' BARNEY NORRIS

Dr Jonathan Murray fears his new-born daughter is not as harmless as she seems.

Sammy Agnew is wrestling with his dark past, and fears the violence in his blood lurks in his son, too.

The city is in flames and the authorities are losing control. As matters fall into frenzy, and as the lines between fantasy and truth, right and wrong, begin to blur, who will these two fathers choose to protect?

Dark, propulsive and thrillingly original, this tale of fierce familial love and sacrifice fizzes with magic and wonder.


Genre: Literary Fiction

"Shimmering with wit, simmering with an incandescent rage, shot through with a seam of wild magic, The Fire Starters is a powerful, disturbing portrait of East Belfast and its people and its hope for the future. I won’t be the only reader to proclaim that, in the best way possible, Jan Carson is on fire." - Lucy Caldwell

"Jan Carson seems to have invented a new Belfast in this gripping, surprising, exhilarating novel." - Roddy Doyle

"Gripping, affecting, surprising. I inhaled it." - Lisa McInerney

"A brilliant, wry novel, fizzing with energy." - Barney Norris

"Blew me away with its power, anger and wit." - Joseph O'Connor

"Spectacular . . . Dark, beautiful, at once grittily real and wildly magical. Insanely alluring." - Donal Ryan