I loved this.

I know that sometimes people have issues with the author's characters - some are quite unlikeable. However, this character is a little softer and more relatable than some of her others.

The story itself is dark and twisty.

I was also reminded of why I often feel uncomfortable in Topanga Canyon - I don't belong there, lol!

There are times you may be confused by what is happening and why, but the author clears it all up in a very satisfying way.

I enjoyed this one!

In "What Fire Brings," Rachel Howzell Hall delivers a gripping tale of mystery and suspense set in the evocative backdrop of Los Angeles.

The story follows Bailey Meadows, operating under a false identity crafted by her mentor, Avery Turner. Bailey's assignment is to infiltrate the luxurious Topanga Canyon estate of Jack Beckham, the son of the infamous author J.D. Beckham, as a writer-in-residence to assist him with his new thriller. Her true mission, however, is to uncover the fate of Avery’s partner, Sam Morris, who disappeared in Topanga Canyon while searching for a missing woman for their nonprofit, The Way Home.

Jack Beckham is candid about leveraging Bailey's perspective as a Black woman to lend authenticity to his book, a move that adds another layer of complexity to Bailey's covert operation. The unreliable Wi-Fi at the estate hampers her efforts to do research for the book and stay in touch with Avery. Adding to her paranoia are unsettling encounters: a watchful security guard, an old woman sneaking in from the woods, and the ever-present threat of wildfires. Bailey's sense of unease heightens as she navigates the treacherous environment and Jack's disturbing revelations about his family. The disappearance of Jack’s mother and wife, combined with the lurking presence of a serial killer, casts a shadow over Bailey's investigation. As she pieces together clues about the missing women, Bailey grapples with self-doubt and the fear that she might not survive to uncover the truth.

"What Fire Brings" is truly suspenseful, and nothing is as it seems. Hall expertly weaves a narrative filled with tension, paranoia, and unexpected twists, making it a must-read for fans of psychological thrillers and mysteries.

I struggled a bit to get into this book but overall did enjoy it enough to finish.
I'm going to give it a 3-star overall.
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this ARC

The cover for this is gorgeous! This was one of my hopefuls for this year, so I was so excited and grateful to get a review copy from NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer!

Bailey is an interesting, kind of quirky aspiring private detective. I loved the way her dream of becoming a detective inspired her mission to find Sam Morris, and how Bailey struggled at times, wondering whether she’d made the right decision to take on this job.

The setting was immersive and the description vivid, making the danger in Topanga Canyon real, but the action took a little while to get started as Bailey got her bearings in a new place and tried to make sense of what might’ve happened to Sam.

Sometimes it felt like the story got a little lost and it took a while before things got super tense, but when it picked up pace it accelerated quickly and stayed there right until the end!

I liked this one, especially the author's voice, but the story overall wasn't my favorite. I want to read more from this author!

There are surprises around every corner in this well-written, suspenseful thriller. Rachel Howzell Hall never disappoints me with her lovely prose and excellent sense of humor. In this book, Bailey becomes a "writer in residence" for the famous writer Jack (who to my mind seems like a thinly veiled Hames Patterson). She will "co-write" (but really ghostwrite) a book with him for the bestseller list he hits every time. Only unbeknownst to Jack, Bailey is not really Bailey, the young promising writer, but a private investigator looking into a young woman's disappearance in Topanga Canyon. And with every chapter, the reader starts to wonder if the charismatic bestselling author was involved.

Rachel Howzell Hall is an automatic read author for me and like I said, she's never let me down and this book is no exception. At turns laugh out loud funny and scary, and with great shocks and an excellent payoff of an ending, this book is a worthy read that you'll gobble up quickly.

3.5 stars.
Bailey Meadows arrives at the luxurious home of famous writer Jack Beckham. She has been granted his latest writer-in-residence position, and will be working closely with Beckham to craft her first novel. She's a little less thrilled when Jack says she was chosen because she is Black, and she will demonstrate he is widening his audience, and she fits the bill for the program's diversity requirements.

But, Bailey is not actually a writer. She works for a private investigation firm owned by former police officer Avery Turner, and is in the Topanga Canyon to locate Samantha "Sam" Morris, a dedicated investigator of missing persons cases who worked with Avery. Sam Morris has located many missing women, or their bodies, over the years, bringing their families some measure of relief.

The Topanga Canyon is hard hit by drought, and the surrounding forest is ever ready to burst into flame. Bailey is educated daily about just how delicate the natural balance is, and how devastatingly fast a fire could spread.

Bailey is equipped with a recording device, her phone, her pc, her paper journal, and files about women who have gone missing in the canyon for several years. Her phone is mostly useless, however, as a connection to a cell network or the internet is spotty at the best of times.

Bailey begins to experience noises almost immediately within the well-appointed guest house on the property, causing her to question what she is seeing and hearing. She receives the occasional strange text messages, and wonders about the man working security in the area.

Bailey's file on Sam indicates that Sam had been looking for years in the canyon for her missing mother Theresa Morris. Sam was also seeing a psychiatrist before her disappearance, and it's surmised she may have entered a dissociative fugue, simply wandering off, or possibly she suffered an accident, or had a deadly encounter with one of the wild animals in the canyon.

Meanwhile, gradually, Bailey seems to gain Jack's trust. His family has suffered tragedy, with his mother disappearing during his childhood, and later, his wife also disappearing, presumed drowned, during a working vacation.

This was a very twisty, and challenging read, with the intermittent failures of Bailey's technology, the odd noises, appearances of a strange woman on the property, the snooping security guy, and odd clues that point to not only Sam's but another woman's disappearance not so long ago. Then there is Bailey's heightened fear of fire, some odd things Jack says and does, and everything seeming much worse as Bailey is still recovering from a mugging that left her injured and shaken, and remembering, in flashes, moments from the incident. As time goes on, one starts to wonder what is real and what is imagined.

Then the book snaps into terrible focus at around sixty to seventy percent into the novel, and things become clear and awful. Jack's desires to reach a new audience are sincere, but there is so much about him that kept me wondering about his veracity and his past. And Bailey proved a difficult window into the activities around her; she's got a keen wit, she's analytical and driven, but the more time we spend with her, the more we wonder if things around her are being manipulated to skew her perceptions, or whether she is a reliable narrator.

I liked this book, but it definitely took me a while to appreciate the story. But, I knew that if I hung on (particularly because of the big clue the author gave us early on), Rachel Howzell Hall would reveal all and I'd be left entertained and rewarded, which I can attest to.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Thomas & Mercer for this ARC in exchange for my review.

Bailey moves into a well known writers mansion to help him with his next book. Nothing is what it seems and it feels like she can’t trust anyone. She is a PI that is searching for her friend that went missing in this area. Did Jack have something to do with it? Did his staff?

This book relies heavily on confusing the reader and an unreliable narrator. I was at first confused as to what was happening. I felt like there needed to be better back story on the characters to keep everyone straight. I also was slightly Annoyed with the main character Bailey. There was so much back and forth with what she knew and what she didn’t know it became increasingly frustrating in the book. The last 25% of the book picks up steam and reveals a few twists. I think this book will appeal to some readers but I wasn’t a huge fan.

Thank you netgalley for a copy of this book.

This was my first time reading something by Rachel Howzell Hall and I was not disappointed. The cover is unique in its design and the title doesn't give away too much of the story. I was beyond amazed at the story. The author did a good job of developing the characters and describing this world. In addition to trying to solve a mysterious death, the details regarding microaggressions experienced ny the MC were well-written. The story was also thought provoking in it's message. I enjoyed this book and think others will too. I'll definitely read more by this author.

The setting is what really creates the tension in this thriller. Topanga Canyon is a tinder box with one road in and out and it's fire season. Bailey Meadows has just moved in with author Jack Beckham, posing as an author-in-residence while she's really a private investigator in training, there to investigate a disappearance in the canyon. There are a lot of missing women in this book, both in real life and in Jack's novels. At times, I struggled to keep them all straight. The author did an amazing job of depicting the fear that comes with approaching wildfires and some of the revelations at the end were completely unexpected.

I cannot get enough of this author. I can't praise her enough. In this one our main character is a writers retreat to try to find her online friend Sam. It is both beautiful and creepy.
The whole setting was perfect.
I also love the examples of microaggressions our character deals with. I was angry on her behalf.
Like the stuff with the bonnet. Fellow white women - those are good for our hair too!
I felt for her with the food allergy thing. I also have food allergies and they aren't common ones. Terrifying!
Love this.

My thanks to the team of NetGalley, the publisher and the author for this review copy.
This review is based on my reading this book and is an honest reflection of my views about the story.
I liked the story and the character of the protagonist Bailey Meadows as a upcoming private eye who goes undercover in a writers retreat.
Rachel has described the locations well and as a reader this was a place that I would love to visit. She goes into a lot of details all across the book which sometimes slows the pace of the story. This helps develop the other characters which end up well fleshed out.
For a reader the first phase of the story needs to be crossed before the story draws you in and you end up being engrossed in the story.

This was my first book from the author and I will be on the lookout for Rachel's next book with interest.

I liked this, but didn't love it. I think the overall premise is somewhat interesting but I was missing a deep connection to the main character that would make me root for her through everything - but probably because some information about her was left vague, there was a bit of a disconnect. A lot of this story had a slow pace, so I became a little restless in the middle, but I did enjoy the way it really picked up at the end. I think the twists and reveals were a little lost on me due to that character vagueness and the confusion it caused me to have, but it is a satisfying story once I sit down to think about it. I think I'll have to read more from this author to figure out her writing style a little more, and hopefully find a book from her that I love.

Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for this read. I used to really find Rachel’s books were up and down for me but I think she just writes with a lot of detail so I have to walk into them remembering them because this one was good. This was very twisty serial murder mystery that I felt was well done. I will keep looking out for her books as I am starting to know what to look out for in her books.

I really struggled to get through this book. I think this is due to no fault of the author. I think this book just didn’t connect with me. Overall I thought this book was good in the hands of the right reader.

I would give this author another chance since this was my first novel from her.

Many thanks to the publisher for my copy. All opinions are my own.

I appreciated the premise of this book, even if the structure of the storytelling wasn't a total match for my reading preferences. I found myself struggling a little with the disjointed voice of the storytelling and the jumps between bits of information and trying to track the real and present pieces with flashbacks and dream sequences.

On the other hand, the characters are interesting and wonderfully messy, and I love a good mystery in any book, which this one delivers on on both fronts.

Overall, a decent and entertaining read if you can get into the structure.

Thank you Netgalley, Thomas & Mercer and Rachel Howell Hall for the eArc of What Fire Brings.

This is the first of Rachel H Hall's books and I have seen good reviews so I was looking forward to reading this one. The story ia mainly from our main character Bailey who has been sent to Topanga Canyon to help Jack Beckham write his next thriller as a co writer. Together they scope the land, the local town, building a picture, plot lines for this next book. What Jack doesn't know is that Bailey isn't an up and coming writer, she's a PI in training, looking for a missing women called Sam.

I really enjoyed reading this book. There's a lot of character building for Bailey, her background and why she is looking for this women. There are a few moments within the book that the twists becoming a little blurred, Or a little jump/loss of time. These however are very deliberate and once the plot comes together, work very well. The other characters in the book, particularly Jack have very individual personalities and keep you guessing on who is the good guy, and who really isn't. The peak of the book , probably around the last 3rd, is very tense and has you twisted up and you just want to know the truth. I found the payoff of the plot well executed and brought the whole book together.

Favourite Quotes " Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is who we are "
" If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there " Lewis Carroll

A solid 4 .25 stars, rounded down to 4 stars for Netgalley, Amazon/Bookbeat and Goodreads.

I could not engage with this story as sometimes it did not make any sense to me. Bailey is an aspiring PI who inpersonates a writer to discover what happened to Sam who disappeared during fire season and that same season is approaching when she moves into a cottage in the famous author residence grounds. The plot is good, however, its delivery not so much.
I thank Ms. Hall, her publisher, and Net Galley for this ARC.

What Fire Brings by Rachel Howzell Hall is another wonderfully written slow burn.
She is back with another riveting thriller.
This story sucked me right in and did not let me go until the very end.
In an atmospheric read and twists upon twists, to its shocking and surprising ending, I found Hall’s latest a fantastic thriller read.

Thank You NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

Based on this book, Rachel Howzell Hall is a master at misdirection, resulting in some very clever and unexpected twists in this atmospheric thriller.
Bailey Meadows is a PI in training, undercover as an up-and-coming author who has gained access to famous thriller author, Jack Beckham, as his new writer-in-residence and possible coauthor of his next book. But she is really on the trail of Sam Morris, who disappeared in the canyon around Beckham's estate, not the first woman to go missing in the area. Neither Bailey nor the reader knows who to trust, and this story is as twisty as the road through Topanga Canyon, where the book is set.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer for the ARC.

Bailey Meadows is working undercover as an apprentice to Jack Beckham an accomplished writer who owns a lavish estate in the fire country in California to find out what happened to her missing friend, Sam. As she begins to meet the staff at the estate she finds more and more women that have gone missing near the estate and determined to find out if Jack is involved. Bailey is all over the place and it was hard to follow at times but as a fire rages nearby everything unravels and you are gripped by the twists and turns.
#WhatFireBrings #NetGalley