In this new episode of the Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin's wife Peggy, whose knack is to read the heartfire of other people and know their futures, makes a perilous journey to the court of the exiled king of England in the southern city of Charleston. There she hopes to somehow influence the king and change the dreadful future she sees -- a war between the free nations and the slave nations of North America.
Alvin, meanwhile, has been led by his destiny northward to the village of Salem in New England, there to confront a legacy of fear that has branded all knacks as witchcraft.
With Heartfire, international bestseller Orson Scott Card continues the story of Alvin, a child of destiny now grown to manhood.