Wholesale Playing with Fire

Against a fiery—and possibly paranormal—threat, a witch becomes Earth’s last hope, in the second book of this witty and sharp urban fantasy series.Tophet County’s Midnight Carnival has it all: a mesmerizing (literally) Phæras Wheel, the racy delights of Sphinxter’s All-Archonic Peep Show, and the lip-smacking lure of “things which never should have been fried.” It’s the perfect prelude to the witch’s romantic night with her boyfriend, Chad . . . until a creepy fortune teller makes dire predictions with an enchanted deck of Garbage Pail Kids cards, an otherworldly pyromaniac sets the moon on fire, and a shipload of pasta-faced beasties from Lovecraft’s backlist lands on the Dunwich Park softball field.These unsettling events are only the beginning of the witch’s troubles. Soon, a series of homicides-by-grievous-immolation sets off a county-wide panic. Then Chad starts keeping secrets and avoiding the witch like a plague of haunted warts. And her good friend Hank O’Brien, aka Deputy E...