It’s not a matter of if you’ll get burned-it’s when, and how bad. Summer Kayes is used to pain. She lived with it every day during high school, when her peers tormented her. She felt it in the rejection of her dance coach, who made it clear she didn’t fit the beautiful-ballerina mold, and in the blade she pressed to her wrist one fateful night, ready to end it all …

Five years older, more grounded, and driven by a desire to feel beautiful, Summer ventures into a piercing parlor and crosses paths with the couple who will change her life: beautiful, bold, confident Rhiannon and relentless flirt Adrian. As the two women become friends, Rhiannon invites Summer into the world of tribal belly dance, an open, accepting community of artists who celebrate and support one another. Summer immerses herself in the culture of the dark and lovely fire arts, where the dance is as dangerous as it is stunning.

Together with Rhiannon, Adrian, and her new tribe mates-brash Morgan, sultry Rosie, and enigmatic Phoenix-Summer forms a fire-performance troupe, and the friends take the Cincinnati underground dance stage by storm. But along with blazes of triumph also come searing hurts, as Summer’s new peace is endangered by temptations and betrayals, and the hatred she endured as a teen casts its shadow over her once again.

Even if all she has built is reduced to ash, can Summer protect the fire within herself?

The overriding theme of Girl on Fire is a timeless one of tested and growing friendships and a building of self-confidence that is audacious in the most admirable way, as a troubled girl becomes a confident fire eater who blooms through spinning fire poi, learning tribal belly dance, and more. The extraordinary details will speak strongly to those who are curious about a world they may never have known existed, until now.