The Hidden Light of Northern Fires

July 3, 2017
Wang’s uneven first novel chronicles how the Civil War affects the members and acquaintances of the prominent Willis family in Town Line, a small farming community near Buffalo, N.Y., and the only secessionist town north of the Mason-Dixon line. After barely escaping a confrontation with bounty hunters, fugitive slave Joe Bell is hidden by Mary Willis, the progressive daughter of influential Town Line founder Nathan. Joe fled the Virginia plantation where he was enslaved after a run-in with Yates Bell, the resentful son of the plantation owner, who vows to see Joe dead. Joe worries about his sister, Alaura, whom he had to leave behind. Meanwhile, Yates has a foil in Mary’s brother, Leander, who spends much of the book wondering why he’s never good enough for his dad while squandering cash and avoiding his responsibilities. He gives up Joe and gets their father shot in a skirmish, causing a rift between himself and Mary, who manages to prevent Joe from being re-enslaved. As the war goes on, the story focuses on two searches: Joe attempts to locate Alaura while Leander tries to find him. Wang’s characters are either mustache-twirling bad guys or so good they practically glow with righteousness; a bit of nuance would have been welcome. The book’s ending also rings untrue, with the seemingly fierce heroine paired off into a happily-ever-after that comes out of nowhere.

July 1, 2017
A fledgling abolitionist, Mary Willis turns her family's farm into a stop on the Underground Railroad, but the arrival of Joe Bell endangers everything she holds dear.Joe is on the run from a plantation in Walnut Grove, West Virginia. His master is a temperate man, letting Joe keep some of the money he earns doing expert work at other people's sawmills, and gentle with Joe's younger sister, Alaura. But Joshua Bell's son, Yates, is a hotheaded, jealous, dissipated man eager to take control of his father's estate. Desperate for money, Yates attacks Joe, stealing the money he had saved to buy Alaura's freedom. Joe flees, moving along the stations of the Underground Railroad, until a harrowing encounter with a bounty hunter leaves him with a vicious dog bite and a mortal enemy: Karl Wilhelm. He ends up in Mary's barn, starving and broken. The dog bite forces the local doctor, a sympathetic Quaker, to amputate his leg, and Joe must stay with the Willises as he recuperates, distraught over Alaura's fate and doubting that he'll ever make it to Canada. Meanwhile, Yates has sold off Alaura. Leander, Mary's brother, is sent to Buffalo to advance their father's lumber business, but he falls into the clutches of Isabel, a wealthy widow, who turns his head, corrupts his morals, and drives him headlong into opium addiction. His return home for financial help tragically coincides with Mary's plan to secrete Joe to the next station and Wilhelm's arrival with a marshal ready to arrest Joe and his accomplices. Shots are fired, tragedy strikes, and fates are irrevocably altered. Wang's debut novel ricochets powerfully from blood-soaked barns to battlefields, from domestic tribulations to political espionage. As war erupts, Wang carefully sketches a series of sacrifices and betrayals, leading Mary and Joe to love and Leander to seek redemption. A vivid, compelling portrayal of the heartbreaking price exacted for freedom.

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June 15, 2017

DEBUT Revenge, righteousness, and a desperation for freedom are the spirits that possess the characters of Wang's first novel. A farm outside Buffalo, NY, in the years prior to the Civil War is the home of the prominent, prosperous Willis family. Daughter Mary returns from college as a staunch abolitionist, and takes to smuggling fugitive slaves toward the Canadian border. One winter night, she comes across a wasted, bleeding Joe Bell, escaped from a Virginia plantation. She hides him, and nurses him back to a semblance of health. When the first shots of war are fired, playboy brother Leander convinces his cronies to join him in the Union Army. But Copperheads (Northern Democrats who oppose the war) and Confederate sympathizers prowl about, and death and destruction come to haunt the area. By the war's end, the hamlet of Town Line (the only town north of the Mason-Dixon line to secede from the Union) is as exhausted as the country is, and yet there are the beginnings of a new land. VERDICT Certainly for Civil War buffs, but readers of modern political fiction will also see some similarities with our present political passions.--W. Keith McCoy, Somerset Cty. Lib. Syst., Bridgewater, NJ.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2017
Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Town Line was just another small town in New York on the Niagara frontier. But the war brings a test of loyalty that will turn the members of this close-knit community against each other. Fresh from college and eager to support the abolitionist cause, Mary Willis starts to help slaves make their way to freedom in Canada. When a fugitive named Joe makes it to the Willis farm after barely escaping bounty hunters, the violence that has dogged him all the way from West Virginia quickly finds him again, putting Mary's family in danger as well. Soon, Town Line is the center of a tangled web that includes the murderous son of a plantation owner out for revenge, a secret Confederate plot, a preening young man's harsh lessons about the realities of war, and the town's own secession from the Union. Action packed, taut with tension, and filled with memorable characters, this powerful debut displays the currents of history as they run through one small town, carrying away lives in their wake.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)