"Nothing to See Here" by Kevin Wilson

    This book was a gift to me, and I started reading it immediately because I had just finished reading that group of self-help books and wanted something different.
   Well, this is very different!  The premise is quite bizarre.  There are children in the novel who spontaneously combust.  That's right, they burst into flames.

   I was so fascinated, that I listened to an interview with the author, and it put everything into perspective.  The author, Kevin Wilson, has always been obsessed with spontaneous human combustion.  As a child, he felt that he could burst into flames at any time.  He describes the feeling as electric.   He felt that, if he could burst into flames, he could get rid of this 'thing inside him'.  As an adult, he discovered that he had Tourette's Syndrome.
  And so, as an adult, he wrote a book with the theme of human spontaneous combustion, expecting to get the obsession out of his system.  But, no, he continued to write books with this theme.
   His other theme is family- the family you are born into and also the family that you make.  When he had children, he felt a great responsibility to protect them, but also to prepare them for the world.
  This novel is about a young woman who felt unloved and adrift in the world.  When she began caring for these two children who combust when they are agitated, she found purpose and worth.
  This author has a good following of readers.  He does write well and I found myself engrossed in the novel even though I would have appreciated less strong language.