Synopses & Reviews
Emmeline Nelson and her sister Birdie grow up in the hard, cold rural Lutheran world of strict parents, strict milking times, and strict morals. Marriage is preordained, the groom practically predestined. Though its 1958, southern Minnesota did not see changing roles for women on the horizon. Caught in a time bubble between a world war and the ferment of the 1960s, Emmy doesnt see that she has any say in her life, any choices at all. Only when Emmys fiancé shows his true colors and forces himself on her does she find the courage to act—falling instead for a forbidden Catholic boy, a boy whose family seems warm and encouraging after the sere Nelson farm life. Not only moving to town and breaking free from her engagement but getting a job on the local newspaper begins to open Emmys eyes. She discovers that the KKK is not only active in the Midwest but that her family is involved, and her sense of the firm rules she grew up under—and their effect—changes completely. A FIREPROOF HOME FOR THE BRIDE has the charm of detail that will drop readers into its time and place: the home economics class lecture on cuts of meat, the group date to the diner, the small-town movie theater popcorn for a penny. It also has a love story—the wrong love giving way to the right—and most of all the pull of a great main character whose self-discovery sweeps the plot forward.
Review
"An engrossing tale of intrigue, deceit and racial unrest in the upper Midwest in the 1950s,
A Fireproof Home for the Bride is a fresh take on a pivotal moment in American history." —Christina Baker Kline, #1 bestselling author of
Orphan Train"A Fireproof Home for the Bride is an engrossing, quietly profound story of a young womans coming of age in the deceptively bucolic Upper Midwest of the 1950s. Its nuanced, utterly real characters and tantalizing revelation of secrets will keep readers turning the pages." —Jennifer Chiaverini, author of Mrs. Lincolns Dressmaker
About the Author
AMY SCHEIBE is the author of What Do You Do All Day? and a former editor at a New York City publishing house. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.