Quite often, when I’m running through the benefits of reading with a group of children, the first answer they come up with is that reading gives you knowledge. And although primarily I don’t read to gain knowledge, so much as for pleasure and immersion in a good story, I do appreciate that much of the time, knowledge is being absorbed anyway. Catherine Barter’s last novel, Troublemakers, was a pleasure to read. The characterisation was strong and the plot compelling, and this second novel plays to both those strengths, whilst also giving an insight into a part of history of which I was unaware.

We Played With Fire toys with the story of the Fox sisters, a trio who inspired the creation of spiritualism in late nineteenth-century America, by holding public seances. The book starts with sisters Maggie and Kate in a remote farmhouse, apparently driven from town by Maggie’s strange tales of ghostly sightings and interference. The sisters play tricks on their parents at night by making strange sounds, but when the house starts to join in, seemingly all on its own, the neighbours believe that someone or something is trying to speak to them from beyond the grave. Before long, the girls are believed to be mediums, and with the help of their elder sister Leah, transport their business to New York.

Barter plays with the reader as much as the sisters toy with their audiences, so that one is ever quite sure how much is fabricated by the sisters and how much might have been truly felt by them to be real. Barter focuses in on Maggie as the protagonist, weaving the story from her point of view, and the character fluctuates ambiguously between naïve and scared child, and all-knowing young woman, with hints of Abigail Williams from The Crucible. She is an innocent young teenager, manipulated by her older sister. In fact, the dynamics of the family are as much at play here as the spirits, and as alliances change and split, Maggie becomes more and more sympathetically seen by the reader.

Barter is brilliant at bringing history to life, making the characters sing from the page, and providing just enough detail of 19th century New York with its food and fashions and décor. She also brings history up to date with her modern interjections that dissect the stifling restrictions of the patriarchal society in which the sisters lived. Maggie’s friendship with a woman called Amy infuses the story with a sense of injustice, as Amy is involved with the underground railroad, smuggling slaves from the Southern States to freedom. Through this prism, the reader sees Maggie’s conflict with the influences all around her – from those who would change society, decrying even the church and its patriarchal hold over women, to those who would call her a witch for her sacrilegious dalliance with the dead.

But mainly, readers will be spellbound by the spookiness of the telling. The raps and knocks, the falling of a picture frame, the ghostly figures in the dark. Each chapter hinges on a cliffhanger, as the reader waits in suspense to see which plot turns are the girls’ doing and which are the ghosts, and who or what will scupper them. And of course, when does fame turn into notoriety, and what does a girl really want from life anyway, and what is she permitted to want?

A fascinating character and period piece, as well as a gripping little historical ghost story – this is a wonderfully told second novel. As I said with Troublemakers, I can’t wait to see what this author does next.

Wow - this was a great book. I can't believe it sat on my TBR pile for so long! A great story of sisterhood, family, spiritualism and belief.

I wanted to love this and it clearly well written but some of the subject matter was too upsetting for me so I couldn’t finish it

A great YA atmospheric historical novel

I wasn't sure what to think about this book when I picked it up. However from the first page I was gripped and was taken along a journey with Maggie (the middle of the 3 Fox sisters who famous for communicating with spirits in New York during the 1800s). Maggie is impulsive and entirely relatable. Throughout the novel you are never quite sure what to believe it is left up to you as the reader whether Maggie really connects with the spirits.

The book has a gothic feel about it. Alongside the supernatural goings on there are a number of subplots including abolitionist movement and the place of women in society which add colour and bring the period to life.

Overall I felt it was a gripping, well crafted and researched book and well worth anyone picking up to give it a shot. I will be recommending it in my library especially around Halloween!

An enjoyable and interesting read, I loved that it felt complex and well researched, nothing was black or white . The author lets the reader make their own mind up. It had a great atmosphere to it and I liked the writing, a great escape

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

This book was very interesting although slow to start. The duality of whether it was a real ghost or just the girl’s imagination and trickery was intriguing and kept me guessing.

The only reason I couldn’t give this more stars is that I got lost in the story halfway through - I would have liked it to be a bit pacier in the build up to the climax, as there were what felt like long periods where nothing happened.

I loved the premise of We Played with Fire, and it delivered on everything I wanted!

This book has such a fantastically creepy atmosphere. I've wanted to learn more about the mysterious Fox sisters for a while and this book really captured their story. I also enjoyed reading the author note at the end that explained how the real events fitted in with the narrative.

The characters in We Played with Fire are so interesting! They've all got different layers and qualities, both likeable and not so favourable ones. I really liked how the book used them to explore gender inequality and the importance of standing up for your beliefs. I wasn't expecting that dimension to the book, and it was really satisfying!

This was a book that I Really enjoyed this read and I would recommend to others easily, I will be looking out for other titles by this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and Andersen Press for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. We Played With Fire is a fictional story inspired by the Fox sisters who made Spiritualism famous in America! I loved that the author took their story and spun her own ideas around it! It's been speculated whether or not the Fox sisters were a hoax and the author goes into great details imagining if it started out as such but then turned supernatural. It also tackles how important perception of a situation or an idea is! This book is filled with knocks, spirits and strange happenings. Anyone who is interested in the Fox sisters and the supernatural will enjoy this one!

Unfortunately this book wasn't for me.

For starters, the writing was lack lustre to me. The story is all about spirituality and magic so it felt a bit strange that the writing wasn't very descriptive or magical itself. The writing also had no tension or anticipation built into it.

Secondly, I didn't connect at all with any of the characters or their story. I felt that were very one-dimensional. There seemed to be no love between any of the characters, not even the sisters, and there was nothing that endeared me to them.

I was reading this to see if it's something I thought the children at my school would like but due to the lack of excitement and characterisation that I felt, I don't see how this story would keep the students gripped.

I enjoyed this. It's easy to read and an interesting wee tale. The jury on clairvoyance is either black or white but this story posits that perhaps there may be grey areas. Undoubtedly the Fox sisters were tricksters in real life, but what if there were odd things that couldn't be explained in amongst it all?

Inspired by a true story of the Fox sisters, the girls who made their fortune in 19th century America by speaking to ghosts, We Played With Fire is a story you won’t want to miss!

Synopsis:
Maggie has witnessed impossible things. But no one believes her, and now her family has taken her away to spend the winter upstate in a remote, freezing farmhouse.

Bored and angry, Maggie and her younger sister Kate start to play tricks: rapping on the floorboards above their parents’ bedroom, cracking their toes under the table, and telling tales about noises in the night. Then the house starts to make sounds of its own. Neither Maggie nor Kate can explain it, but it seems as though someone – or something – is trying to speak to them…

My Thoughts:
We Played With Fire takes a much more serious and realistic approach on the subject of ghosts and people being able to speak to them. What starts as a game begins to grow into something much more and gets out of hand very easily.

“Besides, it’s not wrong to deceive people if they want to be deceived.”

Maggie is quite a unique character; kind and thoughtful, yet strong-willed and not afraid to speak up for what she believes in. She is very observant, and through her eyes we can see things that many people would usually rather ignore. This was something I really admired about her! We can realise early on how affected she actually is from being banished from her town and being labelled of doing something she is sure she didn’t do.

I loved the spontaneous spookiness in the book and the uneasy atmosphere.
During their seances, we are aware that the girls love to pull pranks, and create the random knocks to make people believe there are ghosts in the room. But as readers, we don’t get to know whether something is a prank or a supernatural activity, which leaves us wondering. The mood fills with intensity and these scenes managed to make me shiver many times. It’s such a gripping and eerie novel and I think people would really enjoy reading it during Halloween.

“She remembered hearing somewhere once that when somebody died you should open a window to let their soul out.”

Aside from the spooky elements, this book covered many different topics that are very important, especially today! Activist against racism and slavery existed, but it was led by white people who didn’t let people of colour to speak at events on topics that concerned them directly. The corruption of the church and their propaganda against not only people like the Fox sisters, who talked to ghosts, but against anyone that disagrees with their agenda. And the fact that women weren’t treated as equals, and their opinion, knowledge, experience wasn’t even taken into consideration. I found myself so infuriated with these issues. But also glad that they were mentioned in the book, so we can highlight them, and start discussions.

“When a person is determined to see the world in one way, they won’t allow anybody to challenge it. I’m sure it’s a kind of illness.”

We Played With Fire is a magnificent book!
The perfect eerie book to give you the shivers and transport you to a 19th century. Imagine an old house full of candles and knocking sounds coming out of nowhere. If you love horror and ghost stories of the past, pick up We Played With Fire today!

When I was asked to take part in the blog tour with Andersen Press for this unique YA novel, I was delighted. I requested in on NetGalley because I wanted a spooky Gothic experience and that’s exactly what I got.

Maggie and her sister Kate love playing tricks on their parents by knocking on floorboards and telling ghost stories but when the noises become decidedly real, their lives are about to change forever.

Maggie had an unexplained, terrifying experience before the family moved to the house and this is one reason why Maggie starts to believe that she may have the power to contact the dead. The house seems to be a character of its own that seemed to be playing its own pranks and I was in no doubt at all that there were spirits everywhere.

The story is set on the brink of big political change. Slavery abolition and women’s rights are being talked about and Maggie is fascinated by leading voices of equality movements such as these. This aspect of the book was really interesting and it really helped set the story in a certain period of history. It was a time of new ideas and shifting perspectives in New York and the excitement within society really came through.

Of course, this is still the 19th century. All of the traditional attitudes towards women are still very present in the book. Maggie and Kate’s older sister Leah is separated from her husband and grown up daughter. She is very much a woman in need of a project and income. I couldn’t decide whether I liked Leah or not. I felt some sympathy for her situation but I felt that she exploited her sisters a lot.

The big question that the book brings up is whether the ghosts are real or whether it is all a case of trickery or even madness. Mental illness was misdiagnosed so often in young women, as they could be dismissed as mad for simply voicing their own thoughts and feelings in a passionate manner. Even today, anyone who claims to see and hear spirits is immediately assumed to be insane by the majority of society.

As you might expect in a story that deals with ghosts, grief is a major theme. As the sisters’ reputation as mediums escalates, Maggie begins to reflect on the ethics of what they’re doing. Sometimes she clings to the fact that they’re bringing comfort to their clients and sometimes she has crises of conscience because of the tricks. It’s very much a debate I had with myself while I was reading. in some ways, I see the good in telling the bereaved that their loved ones are still around but of course, the lies bother me.

The girls have just suffered an unimaginable heartbreak and bereavement, when a male priest takes it upon himself to directly confront Maggie about the seances. However, this is certainly just a man trying to exert his power over a woman -and a vulnerable one at that. This damaging language affects Maggie profoundly and she starts to question her whole life path and even begins to consider whether she is possessed by the Devil.

We Played With Fire is a unique, haunting story that depicts a New York that is both terrified and dismissive of what women can potentially do. It’s based on true events and I have no doubt that the real Fox sisters faced all of the same judgements that Barter’s interpretations of them do. I am still not entirely sure how often the seances were engineered by the sisters and how often there was real spiritual presence. I’m not sure Maggie was either! Give it a read if you’re looking for an eerie, thought-provoking YA read.

This story is about the Fox sisters, Kate, Maggie & Leah who use their double jointed toes, dropped apples and thread-attached bells to 'speak' to the beyond in dimly lit parlours. As their renown grows, they are encouraged to hold seances for money, but are ALL their interactions with the spirit world faked?

The tale is based on the true story of the Fox sisters from the mid 1800's who sparked the spiritualism movement which for a brief time captured the imaginations of feverish Americans, in particular. Having read the synopsis I had expected a proper ghost story, which it isn't, but still enjoyed the atmospheric descriptions of the time and the way they set the seances up. There were some satisfying twists which gave you wonder that not all of their meetings were faked but blurred the lines between reality and money making scams. I found the plot a bit plodding at times but was glad I stuck with it and the historical connection and subsequent Googling of the sisters was very satisfying!

I was so pleased to see I was approved for this. The supernatural element always felt realistic and never forced upon the characters or plot. The underlying activism tone was really well done and a realistic insight into the anti-slavery movement and early feminism.

trigger warning
<spoiler> grief, alcoholism, domestic abuse </spoiler>

At first, it's a game they play, a prank on their parents who just want to sleep after a hard day's work. But then it gets out of hand - in more ways than one.

This book is about the Fox sisters who are considered to have started the spiritism wave in the 19th century. It comes with the territory that if you ask five people on their opinion about what happened, you'll be getting seven different versions.

I knew about the Fox sisters thanks to the amazing podcast Two Girls One Ghost, and after reading this I probably will re-listen to the episode they talked about them.

Despite my joy upon being approved for this arc, I kind of did not gel with it. I can't find a real point on which it rests, aside from it not being main-spooky season and I was not in the mood because I am not really in any mood at all at the moment. (Yay for BPD in high-stress situations like a global pandemic!)

It had all the things I was promised would be there, but I kept thinking that maybe I just want to read non fiction on this topic, so once I finished this review, I'll go back to the further reading suggestions and put them on my want to read list.

Upon thinking about it, there was no real sense of danger, more of loss of control and confusion - which in itself can be dangerous, but it wasn't taken far enough. I felt kind of meh about it and then it was over.

Listen. If you think the synopsis sounds interesting, look up an excerpt or if your library has it so you can take a peek. See for yourself.

The arc was provided by the publisher.

I liked the way the author combined the true story of the Fox sisters and wove it into a fictional narrative. Historical fantasy is slowly becoming one of my favourite subgenres so I was pleased that this book was as fun read.

We Played With Fire combines a true story with fictional elements for a fantastic supernatural read. The story is narrated by the middle sister and is just the type of thing you want to be reading during a long winters evening.

I'm honestly surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. and I don't think my low expectations were a bad thing. I simply didn't really know what to expect from this story. it ended up surprising me in a good way. yes, this book is about the supernatural, but it's also about the way we view the world and how our perception affects us. I very much enjoyed the way this book did not simply focus on the supernatural aspect of the story, but also talked about important things that were going on at the time, such as the women's rights movement and the abolition of slavery. I had not expected to be so impacted by this story, but I'm glad I was!

Based on the real life experiences of the Fox sisters, and narrated by Maggie the middle sister, this novel tells the story of a venture into the world of spiritualism.

To begin with the girls trick their parents with knocks and taps in the night, cracking their joints and telling stories, but this turns into something more sinister when the knocks are answered by something otherworldly. Word gets around, and the girls begin to showcase their talents in speaking to ghosts.

This clever novel combines history with fictional elements to make for a creepy middle grade/YA story set in the time of the birth of spiritualism. The subplots and background settings of family life and the abolitionist movement add substance to the story.

Fascinating and atmospheric, this is perfect for a winter evening.