54 pages • 1 hour read
Hannah GraceWildfire
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 30-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 30 Summary: “Aurora”
Visiting day arrives at camp, and campers’ families come to visit for the day. Emilia has forgotten to take photos throughout the summer with the camera her girlfriend bought for her and, therefore, stages a mega photoshoot with the counselors. When Russ appears awkward in front of the camera, Aurora kisses him to relax his smile. Aurora receives a call from her father, who announces his engagement to Norah and invites Aurora to be a bridesmaid in the upcoming wedding. Aurora is flattered by this unprecedented attention from her father, but it’s short-lived. He tells her that “it’d look strange in the photos if [she’s] not there” and that he won’t have “Norah’s moment stolen by the media’s obsession with giving [Aurora] and [Elsa] attention” (297). Her father further ruins her elation by refusing to allow Russ to come as her plus-one.
The call proves to Aurora that she’ll never get the affection she so desperately wants from her father, igniting her flight response. Aurora returns to her cabin and begins frantically packing her bags, no longer willing to play pretend at Honey Acres. When Russ comes to check on Aurora and notices her bags, he offers to pack and leave with her too. Aurora rejects his offer because she’ll only disappoint him. She tells him about her father and her desire to be wanted. Russ assures Aurora that she won’t disappoint him and that, unlike her father, everyone at camp wants her around. Russ convinces Aurora to stay, and she initiates intimacy to feel wanted. Just as things become heated between them, Jenna bursts into the cabin.
Chapter 31 Summary: “Aurora”
Aurora and Russ rush to get dressed, worrying all the while about the consequences of breaking camp rules. When they meet Jenna outside the cabin, she seems annoyed but informs them that their parents have arrived at camp. They walk to the main building, where Aurora’s mom and Russ’s dad wait. Aurora’s mom requests that they go on a walk, where she reveals her reason for visiting; she’s come to comfort Aurora after hearing the news about her father’s engagement.
When Aurora asks why her father dislikes her so much, her mother speaks more candidly about him than she ever has before. She reveals that shortly after they married, he became surly and distant. When Elsa was born, he brightened again and “went back to being the man [she] married” (306). This change was short-lived, however, and their marriage soon became strained once again. They took a solo trip to see the northern lights, and she became pregnant with Aurora, which made them temporarily happy again. When Aurora was born, she looked more like her mother than her father, which was uncommon for children on her father’s side of the family. He began to suspect that Aurora wasn’t his daughter. Though her mother insisted that she never cheated, she eventually realized that he was just looking for excuses to dissociate from the family. Aurora’s mother apologizes for her father’s neglectful behavior and takes responsibility for her part in the damage he’s caused. She encourages Aurora to think about her relationship with her father and promises that things will work out whether or not she has a relationship with him. Aurora feels better about the situation and herself after hearing that his behavior is due to his character flaws rather than her own.
Afterward, Aurora visits Jenna’s office to apologize for breaking the rules and ensure that Russ will be able to keep his job. Jenna decides not to fire either of them and tells Aurora, “People don’t always let you get away with things because they don’t care. I let you get away with things because you deserve to be happy. You deserve to feel and believe you are wanted, and enjoy being loved, because so many people love you” (312). Jenna does, however, saddle Aurora and Russ with mucking out the horse stalls for the remainder of the week.
Chapter 32 Summary: “Russ”
Russ and his father sit at a picnic bench to talk. His father reveals that Russ’s mother took his phone, saw all that he’d been hiding from her, and kicked him out. For once, he doesn’t ask Russ for anything; he only apologizes sincerely and expresses pride in Russ’s accomplishments. He promises to fix the damage he’s caused to their family, starting with attending an anonymous support group for gambling addicts. Russ seeks out Jenna afterward to apologize. Though he regrets breaking the rules, he admits that he doesn’t regret being with Aurora because she’s improved his life. Jenna makes him promise not to hurt Aurora and dismisses him back to work.
Chapter 33 Summary: “Russ”
The day of the talent show arrives. After his and Xander’s act, Russ must tamp down his jealousy at watching Clay interact with Aurora throughout their dance number with Maya and Emilia. Afterward, Aurora pointedly announces that she needs to use the bathroom, which Xander explains to an oblivious Russ is a subtle invitation for Russ to follow. Russ follows Aurora to his cabin, where they have quick sex before returning to the talent show. It is their last night at camp, and Aurora has decided to attend her father’s wedding despite her complicated feelings toward him. Russ still hasn’t revealed to her the real reason that his own father showed up at Honey Acres. He is not yet ready to share but hopes that he will feel comfortable enough to do so someday soon.
Chapter 34 Summary: “Aurora”
Departure day arrives, and Aurora says goodbye to all the campers, who express their hopes that Aurora will return as a counselor next year. Poppy calls Emilia and reveals that Aurora bought surprise plane tickets for Emilia to join her in London tomorrow. The counselors spend their last night drinking and chatting around the campfire. Aurora and Russ retire to her cabin, and they discuss what will happen when they return to Maple Hills. They decide to be in a committed relationship. The next morning, Russ is late to meet the counselors outside the main building. Aurora goes to his cabin, but Russ is in the shower. When his phone lights up with several missed calls, Aurora decides to answer it.
Chapter 35 Summary: “Russ”
Russ is shocked to find Aurora talking to Ethan on his phone when he exits the shower. After the call ends, Aurora sheepishly admits that Ethan called to inform Russ that his father has entered an addiction program and that his family wants Russ to come home so that his dad can make amends. Russ’s embarrassment at Aurora’s discovery prompts him to react out of anger and push her away. Though Aurora genuinely apologizes, she is hurt that he didn’t feel comfortable enough to tell her the truth about his family. Russ insists that she leave, and she does, but he regrets his actions immediately.
When Russ shows up at his truck, Aurora is waiting for him. She is skipping her flight to her father’s wedding in Palm Springs in favor of amending things with Russ. Aurora demands to ride with him back to Maple Hills and either talk or sit in silence. Russ apologizes for his behavior and tells Aurora everything on the drive home. Aurora promises to be by Russ’s side while his father recovers from addiction and his family heals. When Russ and Aurora arrive back at Maple Hills, she receives a call from her father, who is angry with her for skipping the wedding. Aurora tells her father about her feelings of inadequacy around him and claims that she’s “not letting [him] burn [her] anymore because [she has] people in [her] life who do like [her] for [her]” (352). Elsa—who is also not attending the wedding—calls Aurora shortly after to express her pride that Aurora stuck up for herself to their father.
Chapter 36 Summary: “Russ”
Russ visits his family’s home, where his mother, his father, and Ethan are waiting. Ethan and his mother leave Russ and his father alone to talk. His father has moved back in and is sleeping in the guest bedroom while he recovers. His father apologizes again, promises to pay Russ back for the money he’s taken, and hopes to make amends by providing his family with proof over time of his changed behavior. As he’s leaving, Russ notices that Ethan is looking rough and asks about his well-being, but Ethan shrugs his concern off. When Russ returns home, he finds Aurora setting up a tent in the backyard for them to camp out in for the night.
Chapter 37 Summary: “Aurora”
Aurora and Russ last until 2:00 am with the tent before moving back into the house. The next morning while Russ is in the shower, Aurora works with his friends to throw him a “housecoming” party. At the party, the friends share stories, and Aurora asks why they call Russ “muffin.” They admit to not knowing why, leaving Russ and Stassie to share that they fake-dated for an hour last year to save her from horrible customers who were harassing her at the bar he worked at. Henry scoffs at the fake-dating ploy, calling it the “most ridiculous thing [he’s] ever heard” (370). Russ admits that Stassie called him “muffin” as an affectionate nickname during the stunt, which stuck. At some point during the party, Aurora enters the kitchen and spots Russ grabbing glasses out of a cupboard. Mirroring the moment they met, Aurora calls him a thief and asks if he’s burgled there before. They admit to falling in love with each other.
Epilogue Summary: “Russ”
Nine years later, Russ helps Aurora prepare for the opening of her Meadow Springs bookstore, Happy Ending, for which Russ’s dad helped build shelves. They went on to be counselors at Honey Acres for two more summers and eventually moved to Meadow Springs, where they bought the land on which they had their first date and built their dream home. They also got two puppies from another litter of Fish’s, which they named Tuna and Flounder, and several more rescue animals. Russ and his father have a much-improved relationship, but Aurora’s dad remains absent from her life. Russ briefly speaks with Henry, who painted a northern lights mural for the kids’ section, and admires the turnout. Many of their Maple Hills friends and family have made it to Aurora’s grand opening.
Chapter 30-Epilogue Analysis
In the concluding chapters of Wildfire, Grace subverts the “third-act breakup” plot point often seen in romances by enforcing the importance of communication. Many contemporary romance plots include a third-act breakup, which consists of a major conflict or miscommunication that temporarily causes the novel’s love interests to part ways. The third-act breakup is then promptly followed by a dramatic recoupling, often brought on by a grand romantic gesture. In Wildfire, however, rather than prematurely end their relationship after Aurora discovers the truth about Russ’s father, they decide to ride back to Maple Hills together and use the several-hour-long car ride to clearly express their thoughts and feelings. By doing so, Aurora and Russ exemplify healthy communication and alleviate the need for the stereotypical grand romantic gesture that characterizes the romance genre.
While Honey Acres represents a space relatively insulated from external family problems, cell phones impede on this insulation in positive and negative ways, introducing conflict and destabilization even as they force characters to finally confront longstanding issues head-on. For both Aurora and Ross, the allure of Honey Acres was its spotty service and promise of a relatively “unplugged” summer. Thus, phones come to symbolize their preference to avoid life’s problems. In this section, Aurora receives a call from her father that explicitly proves his disregard for her and places her character growth in jeopardy. All the confidence and self-security Aurora has cultivated at Honey Acres over the summer is destabilized, and she considers running away—going “to Bora Bora and turn[ing] off [her] cell phone” or “throw[ing] it into the trash” (299). Once again, Aurora’s instinct is to avoid her issues rather than facing them head-on. In a more positive light, Russ’s mother goes through his father’s phone and discovers everything he’s been hiding from her about his gambling habits and his relationship with Russ. By searching through his father’s phone, Russ’s mother faces the familial issues she’s been avoiding and puts positive change in motion. The novel’s final conflict comes to a head when Aurora answers Russ’s phone call from Ethan that reveals the only secret Russ wasn’t yet inclined to share. However, it is facing it rather than running away afterward that allows Aurora and Russ to pull through with their relationship unscathed. As soon as Aurora and Russ depart from the safe bubble of Honey Acres, she receives a call from her father. Their departure from camp paired with the timely phone call that Aurora receives from her primary external conflict symbolizes the end of her “unplugged” summer and a return to life’s problems. Aurora answers the phone call and fields her father’s anger without allowing it to affect her sense of self-worth, revealing the extent of her character growth.
Because Wildfire is the second installment in a planned trilogy, the novel sets the groundwork for the next installment, Daydream, which follows Henry (the new Maple Hills hockey captain and Russ’s roommate) and Halle (Aurora’s friend and an avid bookworm). During their first visit to Meadow Springs, Aurora details her dreams of opening a bookshop and tells Russ about her friend Halle, who loves Jane Austen and runs the book club at The Next Chapter bookstore in Maple Hills. In the last few chapters of the novel when Aurora and Russ reunite with Russ’s friends at the “housecoming” party, he tells the story of fake-dating Stassie for an hour during the previous school year. Henry replies, “Fake dating? That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard” (371). This statement adheres to the rom-com genre’s staple tone of employing irony in the narrative, as fake-dating will become central to the plot of Daydream. The Epilogue, set nine years later, offers not only a satisfying conclusion to Aurora and Russ’s love story but also easter eggs about the series’ other couples. Cameos from Robbie and Lola and Nate and Stassie, as well as their kids-to-be, abound. In Russ’s short conversation with Henry, it’s implied that Henry has brought signed editions for Aurora and that some mysterious woman is busy with a child. Considering that it’s nine years later and Henry’s love story occurs mere months after the summer depicted in Wildfire, it’s hinted at that Henry and a book lover—likely Halle—are happily in love with a family of their own.
