The Fire Sermon

Post- apocalyptic sibling rivalry

Release Date: 26 February

416 pages | Hardback Author: Francesca Haig Publisher: Harper Voyager

So much about The Fire

Sermon feels familiar: a world devastated by war, where people have regressed to a lower level of technology. People are either privileged, able- bodied Alphas, or Omegas, who are mutated in some way, and repressed. The twist is that every birth is of twins, one Alpha and one Omega, and when one twin dies, so does the other. The story follows Omega seer Cass, whose Alpha politician twin is trying to imprison her to protect himself, as she flees in search of an island ruled by Omegas.

The notion of society splitting into an under- and over- class is nothing new, and an awful lot of recent YA novels have been centred on the struggles of plucky underdogs. That said, what The Fire Sermon does, it does well, and it should please Hunger Games fans. Miriam McDonald