Like a cross between King's Firestarter and The Stand but amped up for the post-millenial generation, this tale of a world smoking in ruins as a pathogen that results in its victims suffering spontaneous combustion rages across the globe. Harper Grayson catches it - but she's also discovers she is pregnant, and is determined to survive long enough to bring her probably uninfected baby into the world. Social order is breaking down, however, and the authorities are dealing ruthlessly with the infected. Saved by a mysterious infected Fireman with the ability to wield the flames, she joins a hidden community of infecteds who have learned to survive with their disease. However, a society of the infected is as likely to break down as a society of the uninfected in such intolerable circumstances. Nowhere is safe, and her due date is drawing closer.

Hill is a terrific writer, has a bountiful and wicked imagination and isn't afraid to update horror myths of the seventies and eighties for the modern world, remaking them anew and ultimately creating something highly original of his own. This is a fantastic, thrilling, even amazing read, even at its most horrifying, and it gets pretty horrifying.