These Are the Fireworks est un roman captivant, le premier pour adultes de Vicki Grant, et c’est une réussite. Grant raconte cette histoire à travers plusieurs voix, rappelant que la perception est tout : ce que vous voyez n’est pas forcément ce que voit quelqu’un d’autre, même un proche.
These Are the Fireworks
Quand Petra, 69 ans, se met à rire aux funérailles de son mari, ses filles comprennent que leur famille cache bien des secrets.
Award-winning young adult novelist Vicki Grant's adult debut, perfect for fans of Lucy Foley, Bad Sisters, and The Perfect Couple, follows a family's unravelling after the death of its patriarch.
Petra felt oddly calm. The last forty years of her life had turned out to be very good preparation for this little caper. Not showing her true emotions. Being blandly pleasant. Jackie O, as she knew the girls secretly called her. She'd honed her skills on windbags, petty snobs, and garden-variety monsters. She was dealing with a killer now but, really, it was only a matter of degrees.
Nina Fforde believed her parents had the perfect marriageuntil her elegant mother showed up at her father's funeral in gleeful red lipstick. In the days following, Petra's behaviour only becomes more inappropriate. She clears the family home of any vestige of her husband, Malcolm. She smokes, she drinks, she laughs lustily during stolen phone calls. It's her life, the sixty-nine-year-old matron warns her daughters, and she's finally going to live it.
Nina's twin sister Libby puts Petra's transformation down to a form of 'bereavement mania,' induced by the freak accident that took Malcolm's life. She's just temporarily unhinged; she'll be back to her lovely old self in no time. Nina's older sister, Clary, is more suspicious. Even before Malcolm's death, she'd seen evidence their parents' marriage wasn't as blissful as publicized.
Nina is caught in the middle. She's going through a transformation herself. Her father's sudden death makes her re-evaluate her own life. She hasn't lived up to her early promise. Now in her mid-thirties, Nina and her schleppy boyfriend are working as live-in help for a retired professor. In a moment of clarity, Nina moves in with Petra. Her front-row seat gives her an uncomfortably intimate view of her mother's life. The nude sunbathing and show tunes in the shower are upsetting, but it's Petra's covert involvement with a much younger man that raises the question: Was Petra complicit in Malcolm's death?
The police file is still open and a young, keen-eyed detective is keeping a close watch on the Fforde family. Wanting both to protect her mother and do right by her father, Nina begins her own investigatationhoping to get to the truth first. What she finds will change everything she thought she knew about her parents, and shake the very foundations of their family.
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Petra felt oddly calm. The last forty years of her life had turned out to be very good preparation for this little caper. Not showing her true emotions. Being blandly pleasant. Jackie O, as she knew the girls secretly called her. She'd honed her skills on windbags, petty snobs, and garden-variety monsters. She was dealing with a killer now but, really, it was only a matter of degrees.
Nina Fforde believed her parents had the perfect marriageuntil her elegant mother showed up at her father's funeral in gleeful red lipstick. In the days following, Petra's behaviour only becomes more inappropriate. She clears the family home of any vestige of her husband, Malcolm. She smokes, she drinks, she laughs lustily during stolen phone calls. It's her life, the sixty-nine-year-old matron warns her daughters, and she's finally going to live it.
Nina's twin sister Libby puts Petra's transformation down to a form of 'bereavement mania,' induced by the freak accident that took Malcolm's life. She's just temporarily unhinged; she'll be back to her lovely old self in no time. Nina's older sister, Clary, is more suspicious. Even before Malcolm's death, she'd seen evidence their parents' marriage wasn't as blissful as publicized.
Nina is caught in the middle. She's going through a transformation herself. Her father's sudden death makes her re-evaluate her own life. She hasn't lived up to her early promise. Now in her mid-thirties, Nina and her schleppy boyfriend are working as live-in help for a retired professor. In a moment of clarity, Nina moves in with Petra. Her front-row seat gives her an uncomfortably intimate view of her mother's life. The nude sunbathing and show tunes in the shower are upsetting, but it's Petra's covert involvement with a much younger man that raises the question: Was Petra complicit in Malcolm's death?
The police file is still open and a young, keen-eyed detective is keeping a close watch on the Fforde family. Wanting both to protect her mother and do right by her father, Nina begins her own investigatationhoping to get to the truth first. What she finds will change everything she thought she knew about her parents, and shake the very foundations of their family.
shield_question Frequently Asked Questions
These Are the Fireworks est le premier roman adulte de Vicki Grant, autrice primée pour ses romans jeunesse. Ce thriller psychologique mêle humour noir, suspense et une plongée dans les dynamiques familiales toxiques. L’histoire, racontée à plusieurs voix, interroge la perception de la vérité et les non-dits qui minent les relations.
Le roman aborde des thèmes comme le deuil, la trahison, la libération féminine, et les apparences sociales. Il questionne aussi la culpabilité, la réinvention de soi, et les limites de la loyauté familiale, le tout sur fond d’enquête policière.
Ce livre s’adresse aux amateurs de thrillers psychologiques et de drames familiaux, ainsi qu’aux lecteurs qui aiment les récits à narrations multiples et les personnages complexes. Les fans de Bad Sisters ou de The Perfect Couple y retrouveront une ambiance similaire.
Vous pourrez interroger le smartbook sur les motivations des personnages, les indices cachés dans l’intrigue, les symboles récurrents (comme les feux d’artifice), ou encore sur les choix narratifs de l’autrice. Par exemple : « Pourquoi Petra porte-t-elle du rouge aux funérailles ? » ou « Quels sont les points communs entre Nina et sa mère ? »
newsmode Revue de presse
Quand Nina commence à enquêter sur le rôle possible de sa mère dans la mort de son père, ce qu’elle découvre bouleverse tout ce qu’elle croyait savoir sur ses parents. Un thriller familial à ne pas manquer.
tag Keywords
thriller psychologique
roman familial
mystère
deuil
trahison
libération féminine
humour noir
enquête policière
vicki grant
nimbus publishing
vagrant press
canada
halifax
mère fille relation
secrets familiaux
récit à plusieurs voix
littérature contemporaine
suspense
drôle et glaçant
roman adulte
femmes fortes
mensonges
réinvention
feux d'artifice
maturité
thriller canadien
littérature anglophone
2026
ebook
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