An eleven-book saga · Edinburgh 1591 → a near future

The dark doesn’t punish you. It soothes you.

In a market square, a gentle stranger kneels beside a dying woman and draws the grief clean out of her. The crowd cheers “God’s mercy.” One child, alone, sees that a robbery has just happened.

Here the villain is comfort itself.

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The Saga

The only difference between carrying a stranger’s pain and stealing it is whether the hand is open — or cupped.

Across five centuries in one city — 1591 into a near future — a theft that looks exactly like kindness grows from a single corner into a whole world that begs to be eased. Comfort, bought with freedom, at ever-greater scale. And one barefoot man walking the whole way to call a lost soul home.

Impossible Creatures meets A Monster Calls, with the scope of His Dark Materials.

Written for younger readers and adults alike — a fable for the child and a warning for the grown-up beside them. It grows with you.

A story of good and evil — where the evil looks exactly like love.

No strong language; the darkness here is emotional, not graphic. A story to read alone — or aloud, together.

Good and evil · one gift

Evil that wears the face of mercy.

Every age of this saga turns on one power and two hands. One carries your pain away and asks for nothing. One takes it, keeps it, and is thanked like a saint. They look identical — and only a child, alone in the crowd, can tell which is which.

An open, upturned palm — the Keepers' secret sign.

The Keepers · good

The open hand

Those who carry a stranger’s pain and give nothing back but relief — hunted as witches for it.

Freedom — even when it hurts.

A cupped, closing hand — the Easer's inversion.

The Easers · evil

The cupped hand

Those who take the pain and keep it, and are crowned as saints — and call the theft love.

Comfort — bought with your freedom.

Good and evil, here, are the same gift in a different hand. Everything depends on which one is reaching for you.

Look for these

The signs of the saga.

An open, upturned palm. — **The open hand**The Keepers’ secret hello: *I’ve nothing hidden. I’m here to carry, not to take.*

A small brass lamp, lit. — **The lamp in the window**A light left burning for *the kept* — the ones carried safely through the dark. The spark that must never go out.

A plain iron ring. — **The iron ring**Warm for the truth, cold for a lie. Wear it, and you always know.

Book One · Available now

The Snow That Fell Into the Stars

THE FIRES WE CARRIED · BOOK ONE · JORDAN VASCONCELLOS

They burned the wrong people. Edinburgh, 1591. The healers who carry your pain away are hunted as witches — while the ones who steal it are crowned as saints, and call the theft love.

Sorsha inherits her mother’s iron ring, warm for truth and cold for a lie, and finds the hidden Keepers fighting back: lamps in windows, names stolen off the death-lists, crows that carry the frightened out. Then the falling snow turns and climbs back into the stars — and a child is born who will be reborn for five hundred years.

eBook · Paperback · Hardcover KindlePaperback 6×9Hardcover

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“A fable to warm the soul — tender for the child, wise for the grown-up, carried by both for a lifetime.”

SET-UP: the Buy button currently opens an Amazon search for the book. The moment Book One is live, swap it for the exact product link (and add Apple Books, Kobo and your bookshop links beside it).

The Eleven

One world. Eleven books. All written.

A single, finished saga — one city, five hundred years, the same gift mirrored again and again. Book One is here now; the rest follow, each already complete.

Cover of The Snow That Fell Into the Stars, Book 1 of The Fires We Carried — Book 1The Snow That Fell Into the Stars

Cover of If Ye Fly With Crows, Book 2 of The Fires We Carried — Book 2If Ye Fly With Crows

Cover of The Book of Names, Book 3 of The Fires We Carried — Book 3The Book of Names

Cover of The Pause, Book 4 of The Fires We Carried — Book 4The Pause

Cover of The Hollow King, Book 5 of The Fires We Carried — Book 5The Hollow King

Cover of The Woman Who Was Never Alone, Book 6 of The Fires We Carried — Book 6The Woman Who Was Never Alone

Cover of The Pull, Book 7 of The Fires We Carried — Book 7The Pull

Cover of The Spiral, Book 8 of The Fires We Carried — Book 8The Spiral

Cover of The Man Everyone Voted For, Book 9 of The Fires We Carried — Book 9The Man Everyone Voted For

Cover of The Sky That Opened, Book 10 of The Fires We Carried — Book 10The Sky That Opened

Cover of I Am Still Here, Book 11 of The Fires We Carried — Book 11I Am Still Here

Five centuries · one city

From a single corner to a world that begs to be eased.

What starts in a 1591 market square becomes, five hundred years on, the shape of everything — comfort offered to a whole world at once — and the few who still remember that a life without pain was never the same as a life that was free.

Join the Fire

Keep a lamp in the window.

The saga’s inner circle. One quiet letter now and then — and you hear everything first.

First word on new books, editions, audio and any screen news — when it’s real.
Letters from the author: the making of the saga, the craft, the world.
First access to event dates and ticket releases.
Occasional invitations to help shape what comes next.

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Events

Readings, festivals, schools & libraries.

No public dates are on the calendar yet. When appearances are confirmed they’ll appear here with full access details and time zones — and the Fire hears first.

Inviting the author. Festival programmers, booksellers, teachers and librarians are warmly welcome to enquire.

About

Jordan Vasconcellos

I’m Jordan Vasconcellos, and The Fires We Carried is the work of my life so far — an eleven-book saga written and revised over more than ten years, running from the witch-hunts of 1591 Edinburgh into a near future, and asking one question the whole way: what would we trade for the end of pain?

I didn’t start with a story. I started with a question I couldn’t put down — what happens to us when we treat comfort as the goal of a life? We numb, we soothe, we scroll. I wanted to write about the people who stay present instead: the ones who carry a stranger’s pain without keeping it. Grief taught me the difference between a hand that gives and a hand that takes, and the whole saga grew on top of that one idea.

School was hard for me — I have ADHD — so I learned the way that worked: by imagination, and by years of watching how people actually behave and testing what’s true. I’d worked out the framework beneath these books, and tried to live by it, long before I wrote a word. Then one world arrived that wouldn’t leave me alone — one power, two hands, the dark that comforts — and the eleven books almost fell out of it. I built the ending first, so every promise in Book One is made knowing exactly how it’s kept.

If one thing survives all of it, I hope it’s the open palm — the sign the story’s Keepers use to say I’ve nothing hidden; I’m here to carry, not to take. Children have started making it to one another. That’s the dream.

On making: this work is my own — world, moral spine, characters, wonders and ending, and every choice about what to withhold — drafted over more than ten years, long before these tools existed. AI came late, and helped me solve some of the structural problems and execute a machine I’d already designed. Authorship isn’t typing; it’s judgement, and the judgement here is mine.

The promise

Tender for the child, wise for the grown-up, carried by both for a lifetime.

The shelf

The Pullman / His Dark Materials shelf: written for younger readers and the adults beside them.

Press & Industry

For press, rights & screen.

A complete, finished eleven-book world — built for adaptation and long-form storytelling. Confidential materials are shared on request through a controlled route; nothing proprietary is posted publicly.

Welcome from journalists and reviewers; agents and publishers; film, television and rights professionals; translation and audio partners; and festival, bookshop, school and library programmers.

No adaptation is in production; screen is an active ambition, described truthfully as such.