Her Name Was Fire: “She forgot her name. But the fire remembered.”

HER NAME WAS FIRE
By Laura Carpenter
www.lauracarpenterbooks.com
@lauracarpenterbooks

She forgot her name. But the fire remembered.

In a world rebuilt from ruin, memory is no longer something we carry — it’s something that can be bought, erased, edited. Cities rise from ash, powered by clean algorithms and cleaner lies. The past is a forbidden luxury, and truth is whatever the system lets you remember.

Cira awakens beneath a scorched sky with no past, no papers, and one word etched into her brain like embers in the bone: fire.

They say she was part of something dangerous. They say she doesn’t exist. But somewhere between the surveillance towers and the whispering ruins, a signal breaks through — coded with fragments of a memory they tried to burn. Hers.

Her Name Was Fire is a raw and emotionally charged standalone dystopian novel about the fragility of identity and the lengths one woman will go to reclaim what was stolen. It is a story of memory and trauma, found family and vengeance, built on the ruins of a world that forgot how to feel.

As Cira navigates a fractured city haunted by drones, AI shadows, and the ache of lost love, she must confront the reality of what was done to her—and what she’s willing to do in return. Some memories burn. Others bloom. But all of them carry power.

For readers of Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, Blake Crouch’s Recursion, Naomi Alderman’s The Power, and Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police, this novel fuses literary elegance with dystopian suspense, futuristic relevance, and devastating human intimacy.

This is the story of the fire they couldn’t extinguish.

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WHY THIS BOOK MATTERS

• A standalone novel that blends science fiction, psychological suspense, feminist themes, and emotional literary depth
• No series, no cliffhangers — just a haunting, complete journey through memory, love, and rage
• Written by award-winning indie author Laura Carpenter, acclaimed for cinematic storytelling and character-driven fiction
• Explores urgent themes: surveillance, AI ethics, memory editing, post-trauma healing, and the power of reclaiming self
• Set in a futuristic world with echoes of real-world truth — and one unforgettable heroine

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READER TAGS & COMPARABLES
For fans of: Station Eleven, Recursion, The Power, The Memory Police, The Water Knife, Never Let Me Go
Genres: Literary Dystopia, Speculative Fiction, Feminist Sci-Fi, Futuristic Mystery, Psychological Thriller

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AUTHOR + HANDLES
Author: Laura Carpenter
Website: www.lauracarpenterbooks.com
Instagram/TikTok: @lauracarpenterbooks
Contact: press@lauracarpenterbooks.com