The Flame Game

An arsonist is having a heyday setting local businesses aflame, and the Vandersons, newcomers to the small resort town of Mountain Springs, Colorado, wonder if Clay Vanderson's structural engineering firm will become a target.

At twenty-five, Ellie Vanderson, an insecure millennial and the youngest mom in the PTO, is desperate to win the approval of the other mothers while inconspicuously combatting her debilitating puke phobia, all for the benefit of her kindergarten son. Unable to muster anything resembling affection for her much-older husband Clay, she orchestrates an affair between him and the face-saving PTO president. To complicate matters, Ellie's grown stepson, an ex-heroin-addict and the childhood best friend she doesn't realize still has feelings for her, comes to live with her and his father, where his presence feels like a mud print on her pristine white carpet.

As the arsonist's flames grow larger and the Vanderson family unravels, their origins become a topic of interest among the backstabbing PTO moms. Lana Clark, Ellie's frenemy-turned- nemesis, hires a local PI to dig up the Vandersons' buried secrets and discover who's behind the crimes that are ripping apart the fabric of the community, implicating Ellie's stepson in the process. The Vandersons scramble to figure out how to control their narrative, fearful of another ruined reputation in the town they hope to make their forever home, and even more fearful of the criminal who haunts their steps.

This a domestic suspense novel / mommy drama of trainwreck proportions, a BIG LITTLE LIES meets LITTLE CHILDREN starring new neighbors with secrets to hide in a town with a reason to investigate.