Thursday, July 21, 2011

Review - Sweet Fire by Pat MacEnulty


From Goodreads:

"While most people Trish's age are listening to Led Zeppelin and watching Starsky and Hutch on TV, Trish spends the 1970s stealing and cheating to score. Heroin, pharmaceuticals, whatever's available. She travels from Florida to California and Mexico, hustling all the way, and always in the company of the wrong kind of men, whom she attracts wherever she goes. There's not a rehab unit in the country that hasn't thrown her out at least once." With her habit spiralling out of control, it won't be long before Trish hits rock bottom. How low will Trish have to go before she can find the courage to fight her way free of her spiral of self-destruction?

My Thoughts:

I genuinely liked Trish in this fictional novel that reads like a memoir. Trish becomes addicted to heroin at a young age, and by the time she turns nineteen, she is in prison.

Trish's life is a difficult one. She grows up without a father, and always wonders who and where he is. Her mom is a composer and concert violinist, and travels all over the country. Trish is particularly close to her older brother. But when he leaves home, she is on her own. As Trish begins to come-of-age, she takes up with a different crowd, and happens to find the one thing that makes her life a little less painful....a sweet blissful escape....drugs.

I couldn't put this book down, and hated to do so when my lunch hour was up, or it was time to go to bed. Pat writes with her heart, and I believe that Sweet Fire is loosely based on her life, growing up in Jacksonville, FL.

I have one of her other novels waiting for me on my TBR shelf, and I can't wait to get started on it.



  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Serpent's Tail (January 1, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1852424559
  • ISBN-13: 978-1852424558

1 comment:

Zibilee said...

This does sound like a really raw and powerful book, and like one that I would really like to read. I am glad to hear that it surpassed your expectations and that you found it so enthralling. I am going to have to check it out!

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