For May we’re excited to be reading City in Flames by Tomas Hachard. A love story about two isolated people with a deep yet fragile bond trying to find their way to each other while political disorder engulfs the world around them.
Sara is a graduate student living away from home and struggling to finish her degree. When she kindles a long-distance relationship with Kevin, a disillusioned and apathetic IT worker, the two watch as the city that Kevin lives in, and Sara grew up in, slowly rises up against P., a recently elected populist leader. As protests escalate to a night of devastating fires, the impending political breakdown pushes Sara and Kevin’s relationship to the brink and leaves them torn between the turmoil of the present and a hope for the future, between their longing for connection and their terror of commitment.
![](https://shelflifebooks.ca/php_assets/uploads/2023/05/City-in-Flames_TomasHachard-1-819x1024.jpg)
Tomas Hachard’s work has been published in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Slate, Guernica Magazine, The Literary Review of Canada, and Hazlitt, among many others, and is a former book and film critic for NPR. He was born in Argentina and raised in Toronto, where he currently lives with his partner and son.
Website https://www.tomashachard.com/
Twitter https://twitter.com/thachard