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House on Fire

A Novel

LIST PRICE $17.00

About The Book

A masterfully written saga of family drama in the vein of Celeste Ng, Liane Moriarty, and Sally Hepworth” (Book Reporter) about a blended family in crisis after a drunk driving accident leaves one parent’s daughter dead—and the other’s son charged with manslaughter.

Divorce lawyer Leigh Huyett knows all too well that most second marriages are doomed to fail. Yet five years in, she and Pete Conley couldn’t be happier with their blended family.

But one rainy Friday night, on the way back from celebrating their anniversary, Peter and Leigh receive horrific news. Peter’s son Kip, a high school senior, has crashed his truck and been arrested for drunk driving. And Leigh’s fourteen-year-old daughter, Chrissy, was with him.

Twelve hours later, Chrissy is dead and Kip is charged with manslaughter.

Reeling with grief, Leigh nonetheless does her best to rally behind Peter and Kip. That is, until Kip changes his story and claims that he wasn’t driving after all—Chrissy was, and he swears there is a witness.

As they hurtle toward Kip’s trial date, husband and wife are torn between loyalty to their children and to each other, while the mystery of what really happened that night looms large.

Excerpt

House on Fire Chapter One
A half hour before midnight the greatest day of Kip Conley’s life came to an end.

The day would have ended regardless. It was the greatest part he expected to go on forever. That afternoon he got into his top-choice school; in thirty minutes he’d be eighteen and legal to do anything he wanted in the world except drink and run for Congress; meanwhile, the beer was flowing at Atwood’s party and some excellent weed was circulating; and finally, the girl currently wriggling on his lap was glowing a steady green light at every intersection of her plush, pliable body.

“This is the greatest day of my life!” he shouted, and the girl preened, imagining herself to be the cause. The party was in full Tilt-A-Whirl swing throughout the Atwoods’ well-appointed suburban home. Music streamed into the Jambox and funneled out through the family room to blast through the entire first floor and up both staircases. In the front hall, the overflow crowd wheezed in and out of the flanking rooms like the bellows on an anesthesia machine.

The better part of St. Alban High’s senior class was there—not numerically but qualitatively, at least in the eyes of the people in attendance. They all got into someplace that week, and they were all in the mood to celebrate. They pogo-sticked to the beat, bottles to mouth and shoulder to sweaty shoulder. Taylor Swift was shaking it off on the Jambox, and the kids were shaking it off, too. Shaking off the weeks of mailbox-watching, the months of vocab drills and personal statement essays, the years of trying to shape themselves into every college’s dream candidate. Shake It Off. Shake It Off. That song was every high school’s anthem in the spring of 2015, and the same party was playing out in every affluent neighborhood across the country, everywhere there were seniors with acceptance letters and at least one set of parents out of town.

When the song ended, Ryan Atwood vaulted onto his mother’s granite-topped kitchen island and muted the Jambox. “Here’s to us!” he screamed with a bottle raised to his classmates. “And to bigger and better parties next year!”

The crowd roared its endorsement. Someone switched the music back on and the dancing resumed, but Atwood switched it off again and stopped all movement like a game of freeze tag. “But here’s what I want to know,” he yelled. “How the fuck did Conley get into Duke?”

Everyone laughed, no one louder than Kip. He leaned back, ready to revel in his roast.

“I mean, okay,” Atwood said. “Maybe he had the scores, but what else? Sports? His only contribution to the soccer team was running the betting pool. Theater? He almost got kicked out of the drama club, remember? When he ad-libbed those new lines for Hamlet so he wouldn’t be such a pussy? Community work? Volunteer activities? Zilch.

“So no good deeds but plenty of bad. There was that DUI on New Year’s Eve. He lost his driver’s license over that. But guess how he got here tonight?”

“He drove!” the chorus cheered and hooted.

“Then there was his arrest last year for retail theft.”

“Hey, that was only catch-and-release,” Kip protested. He was still laughing. There were times he could enjoy his bad-boy reputation, and this was one of them. A joint finally made it his way, and he took a hit and passed it on to the girl with a heavy-lidded grin.

“He has the thickest disciplinary file in the history of St. Alban High.”

“Only because I submitted a twenty-page rebuttal to every allegation.”

“Dude. You put a goat on the gymnasium roof.”

“Ah,” Kip said, basking. “Good times.”

His classmates remembered it that way, too, and laughed their appreciation. “Well, whatever,” Atwood said. “Here’s to you, Conley. Congrats and all that shit.”

Kip grabbed his empty off the end table and held it up in a salute, and Atwood thumbed the music back on and the dancing resumed.

The greatest thing about the greatest day of his life was that it would only get greater from here. In an hour or so, he’d pull the girl into an empty bedroom, and after she staggered downstairs and found a ride home, he’d flop over and fall asleep, and in the morning he’d wake up sober and sated, both feet firmly on the launch pad and ready for blastoff. Out of Podunk, Virginia, and off into the great wide world beyond. He’d rocket his way through college and grad school, do a couple years on Wall Street, a couple more in a think tank, then onward into politics. He felt like he’d scaled a mountain today, and from up here he could see the path ahead so clearly, a ribbon of all his bright promise unspooling before him.

But at 11:30 p.m., the best day of his life turned into his worst.

“Who’s that?” the girl said, squirming upright on his lap.

He followed her line of sight across the room to a head of penny-bright curls bobbing through the herbal haze. His fourteen-year-old stepsister was pushing her way through the crowd and scanning their faces with desperate, darting eyes. She was too young for this party and not the type to crash. There was only one explanation for her presence here. “Oh, shit.” He groaned and scrambled to his feet.

Chrissy turned her search in the other direction, and he followed, tracking the beacon of her hair through the kitchen to the front hall. She was wearing a rain slicker and barn boots over her pajamas and reflective cyclist cuffs wrapped around her calves. That gave him a particle of relief. If she rode her bike over here, it meant his father wasn’t waiting—seething—in the driveway. He reached around a pair of grinding classmates to grab her by the shoulder.

She whirled. “Kip!”

“They’re back?”

“On their way. Mom called from the road.”

“Shit.” He was supposed to have two more days of this furlough. “Why didn’t you call?”

“I did!”

“Oh.” He’d attributed the vibration in his lap to something else.

“There’s still time, though. We can beat them home.” She tugged on his sleeve. “Come on, hurry!”

He grabbed his jacket and raced her out the door.



Peter Conley was the kind of man who couldn’t be a passenger. If he was in a vehicle, he had to be the one driving it. It took some time for Leigh to adjust to that. Her father wasn’t that way, and neither was Ted. But she’d come to view this as one of the perks of her second marriage. She learned to use the time to work, or on rainy nights like tonight, to lean back and let the rhythmic swish of the wipers lull her to sleep.

But Peter liked to listen to the news as he drove, and tonight the news was too awful to sleep through. Another school shooting here. Another terrorist attack there. This wasn’t the note she wanted to end their anniversary trip on. It was already bad enough they were leaving the resort two days early. They’d just clinked their champagne flutes in an anniversary toast—(“The best five years of my life,” he said. “Here’s to fifty more,” she said because love was greedy that way)—when the phone rang in her clutch. Parents of teenagers couldn’t ignore phone calls, especially when they’ve left them home alone for the first time. But it wasn’t the kids. It was Richard Lowry, calling from New York with the referral of a new client who could only meet Saturday morning. Could she be there?

Leigh couldn’t ignore that either, not when her billings were down and tuitions were up. But this was their big anniversary getaway, and she’d worked so hard to make it perfect. As a matrimonial lawyer, not to mention a happily remarried divorcée, she knew that the secret to marital success was to work at it. Prioritize it. Treat your marriage as Job One. Two-thirds of all second marriages ended in divorce, but she was determined to beat those odds. She hated to let her work disrupt her efforts.

But Peter didn’t mind. That afternoon Kip had called with the thrilling news about Duke, and Peter was happy to get home to celebrate. The kids would be asleep by the time they got in, but he was planning to take them out for a big diner breakfast in the morning.

The rain would end overnight, the radio told them. Sunny and high of sixty-five tomorrow. But then the broadcast looped back to the school shooting in Missouri, and Leigh couldn’t take it anymore. “Want me to drive for a while?”

Peter shook his head. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?” She trailed her fingertips along the length of his forearm. “I mean, you must be exhausted.”

He laughed and gave her hand a squeeze. His golf game had been rained out at the resort, along with Leigh’s trail ride and the mountain hike they’d planned. Instead, they had stayed in, dined on room service, and had as much sex as any couple approaching fifty could hope for. Not since their honeymoon had they been able to make love under a roof that didn’t also shelter a houseful of sharp-eared adolescents. But now the kids were old enough to be on their own for a few days, long enough for Leigh and Peter to get away and throw off all their restraints. It was thrilling, albeit a little shocking sometimes, to hear what animal noises still lurked inside each other’s skin.

“Oh!” she said as the memory struck. “We forgot to listen to the kids’ mixtape.”

“Mixtape?” Peter teased. “What year is this? 1985?”

“Hey, keep up, Grandpa. That’s what the digital version is called, too. All the cool kids say it.”

“Says the lady who still uses an iPod.”

She laughed as she rooted in her bag. Chrissy had tucked Leigh’s old iPod in there on their way out the door Wednesday night. We downloaded some road songs for your road trip, she said while Kip pretended to hide a smirk behind her.

Peter ceded the radio, and the first song began. After a few bars, Leigh recognized the intro to “Highway to Hell.” “Ha-ha. Very funny,” she said. But it wasn’t the AC/DC original, and when the vocals came in, she realized it wasn’t even a cover. “It’s the kids!” she hooted and turned up the volume. She could make out all five voices on the track: the twins’ booming basses, Kip veering from a theatrical tenor into a beatboxing rap, and there was Chrissy’s strong clear soprano rising above the fray with Mia’s whispery little voice piping in below. Leigh and Peter looked at each other and burst out laughing. The kids must have borrowed a karaoke machine, last month when Zack and Dylan were home on spring break, during a weekend when Peter had Mia so all five kids were together. A dozen songs followed—“King of the Road,” “Life in the Fast Lane,” “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car”—and Leigh laughed till she cried. “I can’t believe they did this!”

Peter shook his head fondly. “What a goofball that kid is.”

Leigh smiled. She could also see Kip’s mad genius behind this stunt, but she knew it would have taken Chrissy’s special powers to get everyone on board. Chrissy was the glue who held this family together. She loved everyone and everyone loved her, so almost by default they had to love one another.

The final song on the mix wasn’t karaoke. It was just the kids singing, a cappella, “We Are Family,” and that was when Leigh cried for real. Six years ago she felt like a dried husk—forty years old and suddenly single and financially strapped with three children to raise on her own. And now here she was, married to this good man, mother and stepmother to this amazing bunch of kids. Theirs was the most successfully blended family she’d ever encountered, in life or in work. Remarriage was the triumph of hope over experience, so the cynical saying went, but theirs really was a triumph, of luck and love and looking forward instead of back. Blessed wasn’t exactly a word in her vocabulary, but there was no denying that some kind of fortune had smiled upon them and the new life they’d built together.

Her phone rang in her bag as the mixtape ended. It was after midnight, she couldn’t imagine who— She shot Peter a questioning look as she pulled out her phone, and at the same moment, his rang, too. He answered it through the radio speaker as she pressed the answer button on hers.

“Mom!” Chrissy cried in her ear as Kip’s “Um—Dad?” came out of the dashboard speaker.

Peter braked and pulled off to the shoulder of the highway, and they stared at each other as they received the same news in their separate calls. It seemed the kids weren’t safe at home after all. They were at the police station.

Reading Group Guide

This reading group guide for House on Fire includes discussion questions and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Topics & Questions for Discussion

1. The novel’s title House on Fire echoes the proverb “A liar’s house is on fire but no one believes him” (pp. 200–201). What do you think is the significance of this maxim in the book, and why did Bonnie Kistler choose this phrase for the title?

2. Pete seriously contemplates sending Kip to Canada to escape prosecution. Would you consider doing that for your child or another family member?

3. House on Fire is told in the alternating voices of Leigh and Pete, and occasionally even Kip. What do the shifting perspectives add to your understanding of the characters? If this story were limited to only one viewpoint, whose would you pick? How would that change the overall story?

4. Compare Pete’s and Leigh’s parenting styles. Do you think either of them is too strict or too lenient? How is their parenting influenced by their previous marriages? How are they affected by each other’s approaches to parenting?

5. Leigh is haunted by visions of Chrissy when she looks at Kip, making it painful for her to be around him. Do you see any pattern as to when Leigh is struck by these visions? What do you think these transformations signify?

6. When Leigh attends Stephen’s lecture, he discusses different schools of thought on the ethics of lying. Do you think lying is always wrong, and if not, when is it acceptable? Consider the lies told by Kip, Stephen, and Leigh. Do you believe any of these qualified as a good lie?

7. When Kip is arrested for drunk driving, Shelby tells Leigh, “Try not to worry . . . Even Hardass Harrison isn’t going to throw the book at a nice white boy” (p. 14). What is the role of race and class in House on Fire? Where do you see it influencing the plot or how characters respond to different situations?

8. People often insist that one should never speak ill of the dead. Do you agree with this maxim? Why do you think it is so painful to admit that those we have lost were not perfect?

9. Leigh reflects upon the extended mourning rituals of long ago and contrasts them with present-day norms when we’re expected to get on with our lives fairly soon. How has mourning been observed in your family, or among your friends? Do you think modern life allows enough time for grieving?

10. Shelby sums up Leigh and Pete’s marital problems this way: Leigh’s daughter died and her husband left her; Pete’s son got arrested and his wife kicked him out. Which of those seems closer to the truth? How would you phrase what happened to capture the fullest sense of their difficulties?

11. Over the course of the novel, there are several instances in which legal logic and its complications are laid bare, such as the parental preference doctrine (p. 183). Did any of the explanations for the reasoning behind these laws and how they can be applied surprise you?

12. While reading, did you believe Kip’s claims about the night of the accident? Why, or why not? If Leigh never came to believe Kip’s story, would they have been able to move past it? Discuss how that might have played out.

Enhance Your Book Club

1. Take some time during your book club for a short writing exercise. Write from Kip’s perspective, five years in the future. How has the loss of his stepsister and the ordeal his family went through subsequently affected his life? What type of man is he now? Does he still have a mischievous or manipulative streak, or is he fulfilling the potential Chrissy saw in him? Share your writing pieces with the group.

2. House Rules by Jodi Picoult is another novel that centers on a family whose son has been accused of a crime. Consider reading it as a group and discussing the novel in conjunction with House on Fire. Are there parallels in the emotional impact of navigating the legal proceedings for the two families? How do age and ability affect how both other characters and you as a reader view the accused?

3. Leigh’s cases may seem extraordinary but they are all based on real-life disputes and reflect the actual state of the law. Do you know anyone who had unusual issues crop up in their divorce? Craft an imaginary divorce case with such issues, and put it to the group: If they could choose, which party would they want to represent? What monetary and custody arrangements would they argue for? Are there other legal or ethical considerations that come into play?

About The Author

Photograph by Scott K. Hime

Bonnie Kistler is a former trial lawyer. She spent her career in private practice with major law firms and successfully tried cases in federal and state courts across the country, as well as teaching writing skills to other lawyers and lecturing frequently to professional organizations and industry groups. She and her husband now live in Florida and the mountains of western North Carolina. They have two daughters.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Atria Books (December 3, 2019)
  • Length: 416 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781501198694

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Raves and Reviews

Evocative writing and wholly realized characters complement a multifaceted tale that's both harrowing and profound.”

– Kirkus Reviews

“Bonnie Kistler captures the madness of losing a child with profound understanding in House on Fire. My anxiety rose with each page as I swung with the characters from hope to rage, and back again as I followed this family through the shattering after effects of a drunk driving accident, but somehow Kistler manages to hold the reader’s exploding heart safe as this gut-wrenching story unfolds. I lived inside this novel with every word.”

– Randy Susan Meyers, bestselling author of The Widow of Wall Street

“A nuanced and compelling story of a family in crisis. Kistler handles a tragedy and the questions that swirl around it with a depth that will take your breath away and have you asking yourself—what would I do? Outstanding!”

– Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke, bestselling authors of The Good Widow and Girls' Night Out

"Kistler has a clear mastery of the legal drama but also a deft touch with complicated family dynamics and the tightening noose of a trauma that refuses all efforts at a cut-and-dry solution."

– CrimeReads

"Relatable and thought-provoking...Readers who enjoyed Ian McEwan’s The Children Act (2014) and especially Emily Giffin’s All We Ever Wanted (2018) should be guided toward this absorbing read, which deftly examines the meaning and strength of family bonds and forgiveness. Kistler is a promising new voice in the legal-mystery world."

– Booklist

“Intensely emotional and instantly gripping, Bonnie Kistler’s HOUSE ON FIRE is a masterfully written saga of family drama in the vein of Celeste Ng, Liane Moriarty and Sally Hepworth…[Kistler] has a knack for putting life on the page, and the book is full of these tautly written and achingly relatable interactions…an instantly compelling and compulsively readable novel.”

– Book Reporter

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