Home Fire characters

Appears from the start

The eldest Pasha sibling, a British Muslim woman who became parent to her much younger twin siblings after their mother's death. Having postponed her own plans for years, she leaves London to begin doctoral study in Massachusetts. Careful, responsible, and accustomed to official suspicion, she is still trying to protect Aneeka and Parvaiz from a distance.

Appears from the start

Isma's younger sister and Parvaiz's twin, a law student in London. Intense, self-possessed, and fiercely loyal to her brother, she resents Isma's attempts to manage the family and refuses to treat Parvaiz's absence as a reason to abandon him.

Appears from the start

Aneeka's twin brother and the youngest member of the Pasha family. Gifted at recording and shaping sound, he grew up with almost no memory of his father and under Isma's anxious care. By the time Isma leaves for America, he has disappeared from the family into the orbit of the Islamic State.

Appears from the start

The British-born son of Home Secretary Karamat Lone and an American mother. Wealthy, courteous, and less politically driven than his father, he meets Isma in Massachusetts and is intrigued when he discovers that she already knows who he is.

Appears from the start

Britain's Home Secretary and a prominent politician of Muslim background. He has built his career around a public insistence that British Muslims reject separatism and prove their allegiance to the state. To the Pashas, he is also the influential man who refused to help their family in an earlier crisis.

Appears from the start

The dead father of Isma, Aneeka, and Parvaiz. He was largely absent from his children's lives and became known publicly for jihadist associations before dying while being transported to detention. His actions continue to shape how officials view the family and how the siblings understand themselves.

Appears from the start

A family friend who helped care for the Pasha siblings after they lost their mother and grandmother. Her practical presence gave Isma crucial support while Isma was raising the twins.

Appears from the start

Isma's academic mentor in Massachusetts. She welcomes Isma into a new intellectual life after years of family responsibility and offers a setting in which Isma might finally define a future for herself.

First appears in chapter 2

Eamonn's American mother, an accomplished interior designer whose wealth and social confidence contrast with her husband's more guarded political persona. She is protective of her children and accustomed to speaking to Karamat more directly than his political circle does.

First appears in chapter 2

Eamonn's sister, whose energy and professional direction sharpen the contrast with his unsettled life after returning to London. She is part of the secure family world that he has rarely had reason to question.

First appears in chapter 3

A recruiter who befriends Parvaiz in London and presents himself as a worldly older brother. He exploits Parvaiz's curiosity about his absent father, offering belonging and a heroic account of Adil's life while steadily drawing the young man toward the Islamic State.