The Fire Demons

Melanie Marttila is a Sudbury-based freelance writer and writing
consultant.

J. Fitzgerald McCurdy is the author of the successful Serpent’s Egg
fantasy trilogy. In The Fire Demons, the first book of his new Mole Wars
trilogy, 11-year-old Steele Miller learns that dealing with a bully may
be the least of his problems.

Steele lives with his father, a police officer, and his grandmother,
who hasn’t spoken a word for years and rocks in her chair perpetually
knitting. Steele plays classical guitar very well, but that doesn’t
win him the respect of Dirk and his band of bullies. Though Steele has
attempted to stand up to them, they repeatedly beat him down, extorting
money from him and eventually destroying his guitar. Embarrassed that he
cannot handle the bullies himself, Steele hides the evidence of his
abuse from his father. But there’s more to this coming-of-age story:
children across North America are disappearing, fire demons may be using
them in their bid to destroy the human race, and Steele is an alien-born
mage who may be the only one who can stop them.

This fast-paced, entertaining adventure includes a hypothetical
geological history for our planet in which the fire demons provide
plausible answers to some of science’s biggest questions (e.g., what
really caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and Neanderthal man?).
Recommended.