Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog.

This week is a Freebie week and I’m featuring books with Fire in the titles. eight of these are books I’ve read and two are TBRs.

Wild Fire by Ann Cleeves, the 8th and last book in Ann Cleeves’ Shetland series. It’s set in Deltaness, an invented village in Northmavine where the Fleming family, Helen, a knitwear designer, her architect husband, Daniel, and their children, autistic Christopher, and Ellie,  have recently relocated from London. They are finding it hard to settle and matters are only made worse when the previous owner of their house is found hanging in their barn.

Fire in the Thatch by L C R Lorac. Colonel St Cyres, his daughter Anne and daughter-in-law June are living at Manor Thatch, and Norman Vaughan at Little Thatch. When Vaughan’s body is found in the burnt-out debris of Little Thatch Chief Inspector Macdonald of New Scotland Yard is asked to investigate the case.  

The Fire Court by Andrew Taylor. After the Great Fire of London, the Fire Court was set up in 1667 to settle disputes between landowners and tenants as the work of rebuilding and developing London gets underway. This book brings to life the complexities of Restoration England, drawing in all levels of society from Charles II, the aristocracy, politicians, the ordinary people and those living in poverty.

The Stars are Fire by Anita Shreve. I don’t think this is one of her best books. It’s set in Hunts Beach (a fictional town) on the coast of Maine. The rain is followed by the long hot summer of 1947, then a drought sets in, followed by devastating fires. The Stars are Fire paints a convincing picture of life just after the Second World War. Grace’s daily life is difficult, constrained by the social conventions and attitudes of the late 1940s.

Playing with Fire by Peter Robinson, the 14th book in the DCI Banks series. In the early hours of a cold January morning, two narrow boats catch fire on the dead-end stretch of the Eastvale canal. When signs of accelerant are found at the scene, DCI Banks and DI Annie Cabbot are summoned. But by the time they arrive, only the smouldering wreckage is left, and human remains have been found on both boats.

Daughters of Fire by Barbara Erskine, historical time-slip fiction switching between the present day and the first century CE Britannia. It’s a mix of historical fiction, fantasy and romance. It mixes two stories, one set in the present day with historian Viv and the other with Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes tribe in the first century.

Fire in the Blood by Irène Némirovsky, is set in a small village based on Issy-l’Eveque between the two world wars. The narrator is Silvio looking back on his life and gradually secrets that have long been hidden rise to the surface, disrupting the lives of the small community. There is a brooding, silent and haunting atmosphere, almost menacing as the truth emerges. The writing is full of rich descriptive passages of the land and the people. It is indeed a gem of a book.

Dark Fire by C J Sansom. Set in 1540, this is the second in the Matthew Shardlake series, set in the 16th century during the reign of  King Henry VIII.  Shardlake, a hunchbacked lawyer, is assigned to find the formula for Greek Fire, whilst defending a young girl accused of brutal murder. I read this before I began blogging, so the link is to Amazon UK.

Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault, one of my TBRS so the link is also to Amazon UK. Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-three, leaving behind an empire that stretched from Greece to India. Fire From Heaven tells the story of the years that shaped him. 

Fire by L J Tyler, the 4th John Grey historical mystery, also one of my TBRs, this is another book about the Great Fire of London in 1666. A Frenchman admits to having started the fire together with an accomplice, whom he says he has subsequently killed.