After the Fire

After the Fire Synopsis

Powerful, gripping, and beautifully told, bestselling author Will Hill's After the Fire is a novel about love, hope, loss and, ultimately, courage.

We meet Moonbeam after the fire which ripped through her small community, deep in the Texas desert, killing many of her Brothers and Sisters and their leader, Father John. Now safe in a facility, Moonbeam is questioned about what happened in the compound. But it’s not an easy story to tell - she’s overwhelmed with guilt and she’s struggling to overcome the voice of Father John and the rules of the Lord’s Legion. She can’t tell them what she did, can she?

With a building sense of unease and tension Moonbeam tells her story of life in the sect and the shocking events that led to the fire. And slowly she makes sense of her role in the tragedy, and she starts to trust again – in those trying to help her, and in herself.

***The premise of After the Fire was inspired by the real-life sect Branch Davidians led by David Koresh and the Waco siege in 1993. The 51 day siege began when the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempted to raid the property of Branch Davidians resulting in an intense gun battle and the deaths of 80 people (agents and members of the sect). After the siege shocking stories emerged about life in the compound under Koresh.

Whilst researching and planning After the Fire, Will read the work of Dr Bruce Perry, who led the treatment of the children who survived the siege. His paper on the subject, Stairway To Heaven: Treating Children in the Crosshairs of Trauma, explores how the Davidian children were experiencing common symptoms of trauma – from the siege itself but also from their life preceding it. They had lived in constant fear - an average resting heart rate of a child around 10 years old is 70-90 bpm, but when they took the heart rate of one child, it was 160. This elevation in heart rate was likely due to a ‘persistently activated stress-response system’.

Everything Koresh had told them about the ‘Final Battle’ and outsiders had seemingly come true – so rather than feeling liberated, they felt like hostages and they resisted communicating with those trying to help them. It was only through creating a stable, loving environment and by giving children an opportunity to express themselves in their own time that these barriers were gradually broken down.

In After the Fire Moonbeam and the other First Legion children experience all the same symptoms – they must overcome years of conditioning and living in fear of Father John. We see how as Moonbeam starts to trust Dr Hernandez and Agent Carlyle, and she is able to tell her story, she is able to start rebuilding her sense of self, and ultimately hope for the future.

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