Fire Colour One by Jenny Valentine

This is such an original story, and one which took me through several phases. At first, I thought it was just full of nastiness - all the characters (main character Iris, her mother Hannah, and mother's boyfriend Lowell) seemed to be full of hatred for each other. How can a mother show no sign of love at all for her daughter, even if Iris has her problems? Iris's way of coping with her home situation is by lighting fires - not just a small, outdoor, dry leaf pile sort of fire, but more of a burn your mother's wardrobe down fire, and let's start a fire in a store room at school sort of fire. The sort where people's lives are at risk, but there is no thought of that - the fire, the smell, the sound, the danger are all too attractive and addictive.

Iris at first finds help in friend Thurston, even though he doesn't really seem the ideal person. He seems a bit of a misfit, a loner, the sort of person you'd imagine wouldn't have many friends at school.

Then Hannah finds out that Iris's dad, Ernest, is gravely ill and dying. She also knows that he is incredibly rich - he owns many priceless works of art. She whisks Iris and Lowell off to visit Ernest. Iris remembers nothing of her father. Hannah has told her that he abandoned them when she was small, and was nothing but a bad father.

This part of the book set in Ernest's house was my favourite. We discover more about Ernest himself, about his love of art (one of Iris's favourite topics also), about his past, about why he was not there for Iris when she was little. Lies are uncovered, people humiliated and shamed, lost friends reunited, a true family revealed. 

The title, Fire Colour One, refers to the title of a famous painting by Yves Klein, made in 1962. Yves created the piece by using nude models as the 'brushes' and then firing a hose of blazing fire at the canvas, putting everyone's lives at risk. In the last decade it sold at auction in New York for $36.4 million.

The scene in the book depicting Ernest's death and Iris's emotions surrounding the death are particularly moving, especially when you know that Jenny Valentine herself recently lost her father after a grave illness (which she too suffered, but recovered from). A touching and poignant end to a brave, original story.