KAREN ROSE is a RITA Award-winning author who fell in love with books from the time she learned to read, with Jo from Little Women and Nancy Drew becoming close childhood friends. She started writing stories of her own when the characters in her head started talking and just wouldn't be silenced. A former chemical engineer and high school chemistry and physics teacher, Karen lives in Florida with her husband of twenty years, their two children, and the family cat, Bella. When she's not writing, Karen is practicing for her next karate belt test! Karen would love to receive your e-mail at karen @ karenrosebooks.com.

In all his years in the Chicago Fire Department, Lieutenant Reed Solliday has never experienced anything like this recent outbreak of house fires--devastating, vicious, and,in one case, homicidal. He has another problem--his new partner, Detective Mia Mitchell. She's brash, bossy, and taking the case in a direction he never imagined.

Mia's instincts tell her the arsonist is making this personal. And as the infernos become more deadly, one look at the victims' tortured faces convinces her and Reed that they must work closer to catch the killer. With each new blaze, the villain ups the ante, setting firetraps for the people Reed and Mia love. The truth is almost too hot to handle: This monster's desire for death and destruction is unquenchable...and for Mia he's started the countdown to an early grave.