On Halloween, 1991, a popular high school basketball star ventures into
the woods near Battle Creek, Pennsylvania, and disappears. Three days
later, he's found with a bullet in his head and a gun in his hand--a
discovery that sends tremors through this conservative community,
already unnerved by growing rumors of Satanic worship in the region.
In the wake of this incident, bright but lonely Hannah Dexter is
befriended by Lacey Champlain, a dark-eyed, Cobain-worshiping bad
influence in lip gloss and Doc Martens. The charismatic, seductive Lacey
forges a fast, intimate bond with the impressionable Dex, making her
over in her own image and unleashing a fierce defiance that neither girl
expected. But as Lacey gradually lures Dex away from her safe life into
a feverish spiral of obsession, rebellion, and ever greater risk, an
unwelcome figure appears on the horizon--and Lacey's secret history
collides with Dex's worst nightmare.
By turns a shocking story of love and violence and an addictive portrait
of the intoxication of female friendship, set against the unsettled
backdrop of a town gripped by moral panic, Girls on Fire is an
unflinching and unforgettable snapshot of girlhood: girls lost and
found, girls strong and weak, girls who burn bright and brighter--and
some who flicker away.
