This is book #5 in Card's tales of Alvin Maker.
Peggy Guester is a Torch, able to see the fire burning in each person's heart. Her power is so great that she can follow the paths of each person's future and know their most intimate secrets. From the moment of Alvin's birth, when the Unmaker first strove to kill him, he has been protected by her. Now they are married, and Peggy is a part of Alvin's heart as well as his life.
But the achievement of Alvin's destiny, and the building of the Crystal City he has foreseen, have taken Alvin and Peggy on separate journeys. He has gone north into New England, where knacks are considered witchcraft and their use is punished with death. But despite the risk, Alvin believes that there is someone in New England who knows where his City is to be built.
Peggy, though, has been drawn south, to the British Crown Colonies and the court of King Arthur Stuart in exile. For she has seen a terrible future bloom in the heartfires of every person in America--a future of war and destruction. One slender path exists that leads through the bloodshed, and it is Peggy's quest to set the world on that path to peace. To achieve it, she must gain the ear of the King himself.
But Alvin's younger brother, Calvin, has also come to the Court of Camelot, with his great but perverted power. Peggy's life is at risk, and she has no reason to believe that Calvin will do anything but place her in greater danger.
Card really sacrificed storytelling for sermonizing in this book, which is too bad. It's almost as though he ran out of interesting ways to tell Alivn's story back in Prentice Alvin and the rest of the series is less good fiction and more a vehicle from which to tout his Mormon agenda. There is more author intrusion in Heartfire than in any other of the Tales of Alvin Maker so far, most of which is pure political crap. Some bits of it were still interesting though, and I'm hooked enough to want to see how the final conflict between Calvin and Alvin turns out. Unfortunately, my copy of The Crystal City is in TN, so it may be awhile before I finish the series. Ah, well.
This was not as good as I remember the initial books in this series being. *sigh* But still a good read and worth your while.
Card is an extremely good writer, and his books are always a pleasure to read, but at times I did feel that the stories here occasionally suffered for being too allegorical, and too much about Card's ideas of morality.
In the 5th volume, 'Heartfire' Alvin marries Peggy, the schoolteacher. All I have to say is, I'm not sure what Card is trying to get at here, but he seems to have a peculiar idea of marriage. Basically, they get together, conceive a child, and run off to totally separate parts of the country both doing their own political thing. Alvin can 'see' Peggy from afar, but no actual romantic love is portrayed in the story AT ALL. Very odd. Anyway, most of the story here, again, is a courtroom drama. This time, Alvin, his lawyer, Verily Cooper, Arthur Stuart, and John James Audubon (yes, the famous naturalist, here portrayed as a caricature of the French - it's kinda weird), encounter a young woman who suspects that she herself may be a witch. Of course, she accuses Alvin and his friends of witchcraft. But when the witch-hunter comes, she finds herself accused as well. Alvin feels the need to stick around and save her from herself. The judge in the case is John Adams (not, here, a President), and meanwhile, Calvin is hanging out with Balzac (the author). And yes, the gratuitous appearances of historical figures was annoying me (but that's just me).
