Hestia Strikes a Match
by Christine Grillo
Buy on AmazonThe slyly funny story of a woman looking for love and friendship in the midst of a new American civil war. Unionists against Confederates, children against parents, friends against friends: The year is 2023 and the United States has collapsed into another bloody civil war. Hestia Harris is forty, newly single by virtue of abandonment for the Union cause, and her parents are absconding to the Confederacy. She is adrift, save for her coworkers at the retirement village and her best friend, Mildred, an eighty-four-year-old resident, who gleefully supports Hestia’s somewhat half-hearted but nonetheless hopeful attempts to find love in a time of chaos and disunion. Let’s Not Date a Confederate!…
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"Imagine this: It is Civil War time in the precarious border state of Maryland. A young woman is left to support herself when her husband leaves to fight. But this isn’t 1863. It’s today, and that Civil War? It’s happening in modern times. Hestia Harris is looking for love and living her life in Baltimore against a backdrop of civil unrest that has seen the U.S. divided into two separate countries, with Hestia living in the progressive north. It’s a modern girl-on-the-go story with a dark side, as frequent bombings make going out to dinner quite challenging. The work is funny, the protagonist is relatable and the concept is uncomfortably close to home – in a good way."
NPR Books We Love — 2023 · apps.npr.org