Francesca Haig Books In Order

Publication Order of The Fire Sermon Books

Francesca Haig is an Australian author of fiction. She is also an academic, and her poetry has been widely published all over the world. She is the author of The Fire Sermon, published by Simon & Schuster in the United States and Canada in 2015. Her debut novel in the Fire Sermon series is currenly being translated into over twenty languages.

Haig graduated from the University of Melbourne with her PhD. Her research area of choice is literature concerning the Holocaust, which really fascinates her. While she did grow up in Tasmania, Haig currently calls London home. The Fire Sermon is her first series and it is a trilogy set in the post-apocalyptic genre. The sequel is The Map of Bones and the final book in the series is titled The Forever Ship and was published in 2017.

The Fire Sermon debuted to rave reviews and proved to be a favorite among readers. Kirkus Reviews said that this refreshingly nuanced novel by Francesca Haig imagines a post-apocalyptic trilogy that is rich and packed to the brim with action, saying that this book is sure to become the next hit.

In this post-apocalyptic thriller, all of the classic balls are in play. Nuclear war can be checked off, as can unrest in this dystopic place as well as a few genetic mutations here and there. It’s been about four hundred years after a devastating apocalypse of nuclear proportions. Now all human beings are born in twos when they are born. They are even separated by chance into the Omegas and the Alphas, and they occupy very different positions in the world.

The Omegas are in a lower position and end up being exploited as well as oppressed. It is the Alphas that get everything. They are the ones that clearly get the goody bags of the genetic lottery they won while in the womb. The Alphas say that they are superior to the Omegas, who are deformed. But the Alphas cannot deny the fact that when one of the twins dies, their other twin dies as well. The stakes are always very high and the Alphas must be careful to keep the Omegas in good enough condition that they stay alive.

One of the main characters in this exciting novel is Cass. She is an Omega and was born that way. The mutation that she came with is a good one– it’s psychic foresight. She can see things and know things that others just might not. She doesn’t need it though to keep up with goings of her twin Zach. Zach is pretty powerful, and as his twin, Cass is fully aware that her sibling is going higher and higher up in the ruling Alpha Council ranks. She also knows that she’s probably in pretty big danger.

Zach actually has a plan this time too that could mean that all of the Omegas become wiped out. That’s his goal after all– at least, that’s what Cass thinks. She can’t know for certain. She is even starting to have visions that are coming to her that show her an island that houses a resistance. The Omegas are not going to stand for being wiped out and want to pursue a life that is free and under no enslavement.

Cass’s real dream is to find a different way that can bring them all together and find the two groups working together as one. Could this actually happen, or is she having a pipe dream moment of a world that can never actually come into existence? She doesn’t know if there is a way to bridge the gap and even if she can there might be others that really don’t want that to happen. Not only the Council but her brother, as well as the resistance, probably have plans that involve probably reacting to what they are doing.

Francesca Haig weaves a fascinating tale in this debut book from the trilogy, which is being hailed as a cross between The Road and The Hunger Games. This post-apocalyptic novel is a must-read, so check it out at a local bookstore or online to see what copies are available to you if you’re interested in finding out how this book ends.

The exciting sequel in this gripping trilogy is titled The Map of Bones. It takes place in the same world that the first book was set in. When the Earth goes into a tailspin following a nuclear apocalyptic fire that ruined all of the nature and the civilizations that were currently going and becomes primitive once more, four hundred years of change are in store for the planet and the remaining people left on it. Now that things had happened, the clock could not be set back; they had happened and could not be undone.

Even though the fallout from the radiation is over, people are still being changed by what has happened. Single births don’t happen anymore, and every person is born an Alpha and an Omega, two twins that are separate in their gifts and appearances. Omegas can be small or large and are typically born with a deformity. The Alphas are considered superior and look perfect physically while the Omegas are the ones that are branded as outsiders or pushed to the side and largely ostracized from the Alphas.

The Council presides over a society that is strictly split into apartheid. The two do not mix and the Omegas live in what would be the bottom of a caste system while the Alphas grab the best resources in the world for their own group to enjoy. The Alphas cannot get away from the fact, however, that their Omega is attached to them. They cannot go anywhere alive while their other twin is dying, and they know this.

When Cass needs to use her psychic powers to take on Zach on the council, she sees a world where Omegas and Alphas live in harmony. But for all of her vision, the resistance and the Council alike may be less than happy with what she sees– and willing to put an end to it for good. Pick up this book and see how it ends for yourself!