Playing with Fire — Kathleen Karr

A highly spirited mystery

Burdened by her uncanny ability to see people's auras, Greer is happy to leave overcrowded New York City, where her mother, Madame Camille, earns a meager living as a fortune-teller, to summer at a mansion on Long Island. There Madame Camille conducts séances with Greer's help -- under the watchful, unscrupulous eye of Drake Morley, her mother's latest male "friend." All along, Greer suspects that Drake wants to make a charlatan out of her fey mother. What's more, she senses something horrible about the man's past. And when she unwittingly starts conjuring up actual spirits, things quickly reveal themselves to be far more dangerous than she expected.

Inspired by the 1920s craze for spiritualism, Playing with Fire is the heartfelt story of a strong girl who refuses to sacrifice her future, and learns to accept herself and her family.