Woman on Fire

Content Warning: This section of the guide references sexual abuse and sex trafficking, as well as alcohol and heroin addiction.

Jules Roth is the novel’s protagonist. She is a young woman with long, curly, chestnut-colored hair. She has a bookish sense of style fitting for a journalist. She is a recent graduate of the Medill School of Journalism and has wanted to work for the Chicago Chronicle under Dan Mansfield since she was young. Through her daring and implacable nature, she is able to get a job working for him. Jules’s youth often makes her appear naïve. However, she is bold, independent, and relentless in achieving her goals, which makes her a good protégé to Dan. Jules grew up without a father and was raised alone by her mother, Liz, a high-powered attorney from whom Jules inherited her can-do attitude. Jules references her bat mitzvah, establishing her Jewish heritage.

As the protagonist, Jules embarks on a quest to find Woman on Fire and thwart the novel’s antagonist, Margaux de Laurent. The narration focuses primarily on Jules’s point-of-view, though it diverges occasionally. Throughout the novel, Jules’s character is juxtaposed with Margaux, and their rivalry creates the archetypical hero versus villain quest