In Gap Mountain, California, everyone knows about fire season. And no one is more vigilant than 18-year-old Hannah Warner, the sheriff's daughter and aspiring FBI agent. That is until this summer. When Hannah and her best friends accidentally spark an enormous and deadly wildfire, their instinct is to lie to the police and the fire investigators.
But as the blaze roars
through their rural town and towards Yosemite National Park, Hannah's friends
begin to crack and she finds herself going to extreme lengths to protect their
secret. Because sometimes good people do bad things. And if there’s one thing
people hate, it’s liars.
Hannah Warner and her four best friends, Luke, Drummer, Violet, and Mo, have just graduated from high school. This is their last summer together before the girls go off to college. The boys aren’t, so they’ll be staying in Gap Mountain to work full time jobs. They just want to relax and have fun before they start working hard. Instead, they accidentally start a wildfire that devours everything in its path, killing people and animals and destroying forests, buildings, and life as they know it. But that’s just the beginning of this monster tale…
Wow. Where do I even start with this book? It seems like it’s going to be a tale of summer fun and possibly hijinks between five friends before everyone buckles down in the Fall. But right out of the gate they accidentally start a fire. Not a little fire that’s easily put out. Not a medium fire that requires a little more effort to snuff. Oh, no. They had to be monumentally stupid on a Red Flag day and start a massive fire that zooms out of control so fast it’s unreal. And horrifying. So horrifying. But you know what’s even more horrifying? These teenagers. Holy fuck. I hate them. Ok, I loathe three of them. Two aren’t so bad.
But if the fire wasn’t bad enough, then their lies just pile on. They lie to everyone about the fire. And it only gets worse when one of the teens decides she can’t take the guilt anymore and says she’s going to tell. Then she disappears. WTF? As police and fire investigators close in on the teens, they now have to search for Violet. Where is she? Did she run away? Get kidnapped? Or worse?
Reading this book is like watching a train wreck. You know it’s going to be bad, but you have no idea how bad or when it will stop and yet you can’t stop watching. You can’t look away. This book is the same. You have to turn the pages and keep reading. Will it get worse? Is it going to burn out of control forever? You have to know! If you like your stories to have nail-biting suspense mixed with some horror then you’ll want to read this.
I received my B.A. in English from the University of California at Berkeley. I'm fascinated by underdogs and power dynamics between groups of people.
I'm the author of LIES LIKE WILDFIRE, a teen thriller soon-to-be published by Delacorte Press, and two middle grade book series, each published by HarperCollins Children's Books, THE GUARDIAN HERD (a quartet) and RIDERS OF THE REALM (a trilogy). Before this, I self-published a middle grade fantasy called THE PET WASHER.
When I'm not writing, you'll find me galloping my little black mare through the foothills of Sonoma County or teaching free creative writing workshops to kids and adults at various branches of our local library system.
The Healdsburg Literary Guild selected me as their 2019/2020 Literary Laureate for my work in building literacy in my community. It is an honor I hold dear. I am also the current SCBWI Sonoma County Coordinator and a volunteer on the Sonoma County Library Advisory Board.
I live in Northern California with my husband, three children, and more than my fair share of pets!
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