On the night of December 26, 1811, residents of Richmond, Virginia crowded into the local playhouse, not knowing that in a few hours, 72 of them would be burned to death. In Rachel Beanland's The House Is on Fire, we meet four characters who experience that night and its aftermath in deeply personal ways.

Sally, a white widow committed to the well-being of her sister-in-law (who is injured in the fire), is outraged at the treatment of women in the place and time in which she lives. Gilbert, an enslaved Black man who thirsts to make a way for himself and his wife as free people, faces the crisis at the theater with true heroism. Cecily, an enslaved Black woman, companion to a wealthy white woman and the object of desire of her mistress's sadistic brother, sees the tragedy as an opportunity. And Jack, an orphaned white teen, is one of the few who knows how the fire started, but faces ...