Review
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Title: Fire and Steel, Volume One: A Generation Rising
Author: Gerald N. Lund
Publisher: Deseret Book Company
Genre: Historical Fiction
Year Published: 2014
Number of Pages: 292
Binding: Hard Cover
ISBN10: N/A
ISBN13: 978-1-60907-992-5
Price: $21.99
Reviewed by Denice Stiles-Mouncé for the Association for Mormon Letters
Set in the volatile powder keg that was Germany in the years preceding and encompassing World War I; *A Generation Rising* is the first installation of Gerald N. Lund’s new series: Fire and Steel. With the backdrop of beautiful Bavaria, Lund paints his characters, and his readers, into one of the world’s most beautiful lands at one of history’s most exciting times.
Following the lives of the Eckhardt Family, Lund takes them through twenty-two years of joy and sorrow as their lives are forever changed by the world around them. In the changing landscape of rural Germany, the family rises from their humble means to the trials of the world stage. It is rare for a writer to present a story from the perspective of the losing side, but with Lund’s masterful storytelling, he gives his readers the perspective and an understanding which history alone cannot provide.
The story begins with the birth of the Eckhardt family’s only son, Hans Otto Eckhardt, and follows him as he grows from a dairy farmer into a man. As a child, his parents provided for him generously. Between their sacrifices to give him the very best and his own remarkable potential, opportunities came to Hans Eckhardt that were beyond his family’s greatest hopes. Hans is accepted into a selective academy (fictional) and plans to pursue engineering at the University of Berlin when World I erupts.
Like all of Germany, and most of the world, Hans becomes swept up in war fever as he passes on his college education to enlist. The trials of war come as a shock to the spoiled young Hans who has always had the best of life and the adoration of everyone around him. Plunged into the horrors of war, Hans is forged from a boy into a man.
In the preface, Lund takes his readers into the basis of the name *Fire and Steel*. Like iron, Lund’s characters face fire, force, and shock as they are molded from innocence into something much stronger: steel. The prologue takes readers through the historical context of the book, giving them the tools and information they need to navigate a Germany that more than 100 years ago with ease.
Gripping the reader from the first page to the last, the pace never slows as the family, and their world, change. From young love to the horrors of war, *A Generation Rising* entraps the reader in a very real world with a fictional family as they go through the best and worst that life has to offer.
*A Generation Rising* offers readers more than just a great story; with factual historical notes at the end of each chapter, history lovers will get their fill of the facts and real events that interact with this family. By differentiating between fact and fiction, Lund provides entertainment and education with a captivating flare which leaves his readers begging for more.
Lund captures readers from the first page, and takes them where they never thought that they would go — giving them a chance to see the world through different eyes. His masterful storytelling paints a portrait of another world from a perspective that takes readers by surprise. Readers will find themselves living in a world that is impossible to comprehend from the history books. Lund’s ability to craft history into a story is the perfect blend of fact and fiction to leave readers begging for more.
Lund’s Fire and Steel series is sure to please the historical fiction lover. With just shy of 300 pages, encompassing an introduction, the novel, and historical notes, *A Generation Rising* gives readers what they want and more.
Lund has done it again; this first volume paves the way for a series that will be an instant classic.