Best-selling author Rachel Greenland will talk about her latest novel, This House is on Fire, at the JCC’s Literary Luncheon on Wednesday, February 19 at 12:30 PM.

Rich­mond, Vir­ginia, 1811. At the city’s only the­ater, the Charleston-based Placide & Green Com­pa­ny puts on two plays a night to meet the demand of a pop­u­lace that’s done look­ing for enlight­en­ment at the front of a church.

On the night after Christ­mas, the the­ater is packed with more than six hun­dred hol­i­day rev­el­ers

When the the­ater goes up in flames in the mid­dle of the per­for­mance, Sal­ly, Ceci­ly, Jack, and Gilbert make a series of split-sec­ond deci­sions that will not only affect their own lives but those of count­less oth­ers. And in the days fol­low­ing the fire, as news of the dis­as­ter spreads across the Unit­ed States, the paths of these four peo­ple will become for­ev­er intertwined.

Rachel Bean­land is the author of the nov­el Flo­rence Adler Swims For­ev­er. She is a grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­si­ty of South Car­oli­na and earned her MFA in cre­ative writ­ing from Vir­ginia Com­mon­wealth Uni­ver­si­ty. She lives with her hus­band and three chil­dren in Rich­mond, Vir­ginia. She has taught cre­ative writ­ing at the Col­lege of William & Mary and Vir­ginia Com­mon­wealth Uni­ver­si­ty and is the 2023 – 2024 Writer in Res­i­dence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Richmond.