I recently read a short story by Rachel Howzell Hall and really enjoyed the sense of humor in addition to the thrill. This is the first full novel I've read and was hoping for that same sense of humor to shine through. While it didn't, I still did enjoy this book. At times it was a little confusing and hard to follow, but overall a solid thriller read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Bailey has just moved to the remove Topanga Canyon, as a writer-in-residence, learning from Jack Beckham, a best selling author. However, she's not really there as a writer, she is there to find a missing person, last seen near Jack's property. Bailey begins to learn the dangers of the canyon each day and she must race to unravel the truth before she is the next woman lost in the forest. 
I had mixed feelings about this one, as it was very slow to start. But as the story reached the last 25/30%, it seemed to really take off and there were some wild moments there. While I remain divided on this one, the author has become an auto-read for me and I look forward to more by her. 3.5*Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer for this gifted review copy.

I had a hard time getting into this one, I found myself never wanting to pick it up and being bored, unfortunately I had to DNF this one.

Novel Concept: 5/5
Execution of Novel Concept: 4/5

Title: 5/5
Characterization: 4/5
Dialogue: 4/5
Plot: 4/5
Atmosphere: 5/5
Theme: 3/5
Prose: 4/5

Does this pass the Bechdel Test: Yes

My biggest compliment goes to the amount of time and cleverness spent on planting information so that the final act of the book feels intense and interesting and most of all, entirely possible. I think there could be debates about how realistic it is, but a quick google search backs up the most unbelievable parts so at least for me, I bought into it. I especially bought into it because it's well planted.

There wasn't any information that felt like it was coming out of left field when I sat down and thought about the book. I think Kadence and Finley were the hardest for me to buy into, even though all the information is there. I didn't feel like my intelligence was disrespected nor did I feel like Hall tried to shock me for the sake of it. I just...I don't know.

It might have to do with the fact that we just don't get a lot of information about them in relation to the final act of the novel. I wished we could have gotten some more information about them because it just didn't feel believable for me in consideration to the bag guy and their motives.

Margo on the other hand? I LOVED her. I was suspect of her since the beginning and her character and the choices made--fantastic. She was everything I could have hoped for and more.

I'll be honest: I didn't like the ending. It feels like there's a chapter missing. It feels too calm of an ending given all the lore we learn about Bailey. It just didn't feel right to me--not in the slightest. Given the ending of this book, it posits a very important question about an unaccounted for character and honestly, I wanted to know what happened to him? What did the bad guy to do him?

Part of the set up also irks me the wrong way because there's a break in world logic. Avery's email doesn't make sense by the end of the novel. It tells Bailey that she's looking for someone, but given the ending it doesn't make sense for that email to be phrased like that.

There's also some cloak and dagger stuff that feels a little frustrating, but nothing so egregious I feel the need to go into detail because I never truly felt blindsided. At most I would ask, "okay, but if she knows x why is she acting like this?"

But where this book is at it's weakest is the theme. It didn't really feel like the book was saying something, and I think part of that has to do with the strangely calm ending and the lack of depth given to Kadence and Finely at the end. I think this book had potential to really talk about trauma and psychological damage and the way our brains work against us in order to protect us, but it trips right at the finish line. The thriller is still good. I still had a good time, I just don't think the theme quite hit its mark.

This was a great read, and I feel like I was respected as an intelligent reader. My biggest gripe with thrillers are these rugslip twists, these red herring gotcha shock value nonsense because some writers favor "unpredictability" over an enjoyable read. and that is NOT what's happening in this book, and by that alone I can overlook some of the weaker points.

I’m not going to lie - I really struggled to concentrate for the first half of this book. I just didn’t connect too much with the MC or the whole storyline. However, as the book progressed, the last 20% or so was wild, and there were a lot of unexpected surprises. This kind of made up for the earlier part of the book, and it also makes me wonder if the author didn’t almost craft the story in such a way to really wallop the reader. I would think fans of investigative thrillers/mysteries would enjoy what this one offers.

What The Fire Brings is a thriller set in the Topanga Canyon of Southern California. Bailey, a PI in training, just moved there as part of the writers-in-residence for thriller author Jack Beckham. But what she really moved there for was to find a missing woman named Sam, founder of the nonprofit The Way Home which helps families find their missing loved ones. Sam was last seen in the canyon surrounding Beckham’s property. The WiFi and cellular is unreliable, the surrounding trees and canyon is dry, and fire is a constant threat.

I know that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but this cover is so cool, it immediately pulled me in. I can’t say much about this book without giving things away but the cover was not misleading, this was a good read!

Bailey’s voice was very engaging. I went in and out of boredom the first half of the book or so but once I reached around 65 percent of the book, it picked up and didn’t stop. I think I need to do a re-read at some point to fully digest everything. It was a wild ride!

3.5 rounded up.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I could not get into this but I think more due to a reading slump than a book problem. Don’t take my review to heart.

I liked this interesting take on a thriller by this author and the setting was evocative in the canyons of LA whichever had always had an allure for the criminal element.
It was a fast quick good read that I thoroughly enjoyed

3.5 stars — I was so convinced I hated this book and at about 60% in I started to skim just to get to the conclusion. But then some of the pieces finally slotted into place and I think the end result was quietly brilliant. This plot was totally batshit crazy and choppy at certain critical points but somehow managed to work in its conclusion. Definitely had several “oh SHIT” moments towards the end I did not see coming.

Bailey Meadows is training to be a PI and is on her first undercover assignment — trying to find a young woman who went missing in Topanga Canyon. I was initially frustrated by the lack of information we received about her mark — including why and how she went missing — but all of that will eventually be revealed.

Bailey is posing as an unknown, unpublished new author who has been selected to co-write for a starring best selling male author, Jack. Jack is an enigma, as is most of this live-in writing fellowship situation. The family has just a few too many “personal tragedies” attached to it, making Bailey extremely suspicious. And the area itself also has a sordid history, with several missing women being last seen on local hiking trails. Add a pandemic and an out of control brush fire to the mix and the tension is quickly ratcheted up to an eleven.

Through Bailey’s hap-hazard research files and her honestly terrible investigative skills, we begin to uncover what we came for — answers. And just like any good thriller/mystery — it’s an end that you probably didn’t see coming. I think ultimately ends up being worth the original frustration over the opaqueness in the plot and the confusing way key details are initially revealed.

Twists and turns just like Topanga Canyon Road. Bailey is determined and vulnerable and relatable and frustrating at times, making me hold my breath during her journey. Rachel Howzell Hall uses beautiful descriptive writing, building up the pace as the story progresses. While some of the plot is predictable, there are other surprising, a-ha!, moments that were so fun to read and answered so many questions. Thank you to NetGalley for the e-ARC, I’d recommend this story for fans of psychological thrillers!

What Fire Brings was a wild and twisty ride. It was confusing at times to follow but it all came together at the end. I finished it a while ago and I can’t stop thinking about it. I really enjoyed reading this book!

Generally, I enjoyed this book - some points, however, weren’t very easy to follow. It was difficult to ascertain which character was which at some points, and difficult to put the pieces together to create a solid narrative. The end made up for the middle, certainly, and I enjoyed reading it, but the main character being selected for a residency to solve a whodunit and then another entire storyline erupting made this one just a “meh” for me.

Bailey Meadows is a PI in training going undercover as an aspiring author in Topanga Canyon. She was accepted into a writer-in-residence program to work with and learn from Jack Beckham, your typical wealthy author/villain. His family has lived in the canyon for generations and funded almost every community group and program that exists, earning the town’s goodwill and an untouchable status. But Bailey believes that the Beckham family is responsible for the disappearance of Sam Morris, a woman who spent her time locating missing people. And Sam isn’t the only woman who went missing in Topanga Canyon. The more Bailey investigates, the more crimes she suspects the Beckhams of committing. But she’s determined not to blow her cover and to get to the truth. Will she be able to do so before she’s the next one to go missing?

It was slightly hard to get into this story. There is quite a bit of inner dialogue throughout that is itself harried and disjointed. There’s not much interaction between Bailey and the other characters at times, and we’re left with her thoughts and a copious amount of descriptions about the canyons and wildfires. But the action picks up towards the end of the story and it really gets good. If it could have been that crazy earlier on, I think more people would be engaged and stick with it.

I also wasn’t sure if one of the twists was supposed to be apparent early in the story. But plenty of action still follows that reveal, so maybe it was. I think when you sit back and reflect on the way the story evolves, you realize how hard it must have been to write Bailey’s character. And there are other reveals where you’re like “Whaaat? Oh, that’s good.” So, you might find it a bit confusing at certain points, but the author did an awesome job of weaving all the complex threads of the story together. This is one book that you will not forget!

This was a great book. I loved every paragraph, every sentence and every word of this masterpiece! I read it in 12 hours, which is a lot for me to do! It had everything and more laid out in the novel! I sure hope There is more to come from this author! I am totally hooked!

DNF at 25%

I have read multiple books by Rachel Howzell Hall and have really enjoyed them. I was really drawn in by the premise of this one. However, I felt that the writing was all over the place and hard to follow. I usually love an unreliable narrator, but this was just so disjointed that I got several pages in without really knowing what was going on. I kept going back in the book thinking I'd missed things when really they'd never been explained. I may try again later, but it's not the right book for me right now.

Good for fans of unreliable narrators and a good mystery!

This book was so many things. Thrilling. Confusing. Unpredictable. Consuming.

The story follows Bailey who is working as an undercover PI that is searching for her missing friend under the guise of a writer doing a 1x1 workshop. As you read you start to predict who you think the killer is… what you think is going on… but the wild twists in the final chapters are something you won’t see coming!

Only challenge I had was the book was written from multiple POVs which was a bit confusing at times on what was going on or whose POV I was reading. In the end it makes sense but in the middle I was for sure lost.

An undercover writer! A mysterious author! An atmospheric setting! What Fire Brings had the foundation to be a book I would love — but unfortunately, I could not click with the writing. The beginning of the book feels a bit all over the place; the narration keeps jumping into different tangents that slow down the plot rather than pull the reader in. Almost immediately, I found myself frustrated at seemingly simple details that weren't mentioned. Maybe that was intentional on the author's part, but it made it challenging to connect with Bailey and her story.

This book wasn't a fit for me, but given the glowing reviews from other readers, I'm confident it will find its audience.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me an e-Arc!

To be honest, this book took a while for me to get into but it took a turn at the 60 percent mark. I had no idea where this was going but the last half had me binging to the end because it was revelation after revelation. By the time I finished, I had to go back and re-read a couple chapters to fully understand what the heck happened.

It was definitely more of a slow read but it allows for the reader to really gather the given clues that really wrap up the story nicely. A solid 3-star read.

What Fire Brings is another fantastic book by Rachel Howzell Hall. It is the story of Bailey Meadows, a writer-in-residence at the estate of famous author Jack Beckham. He is excited to collaborate with her on his latest book. What he doesn't know is that Bailey has other motives for being at his estate in Topanga Canyon. She is looking into the disappearance of several women who were last seen in the area, the most recent being Sam Morris. Things start off smoothly enough until she has an allergic reaction to the punch being served at lunch. Then she sees a woman wandering near the woods who tells her "she's in the high grass". The more Bailey tries to investigate the more she starts to think that Jack and his remote estate are hiding a dangerous secret. What I love the most about Rachel Howzell Hall's books is that she doesn't sacrifice character development for plot. Her plots are twisty and intriguing but her characters are always memorable. This book is no different. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Bailey Meadows goes undercover as a writer-in-residence to look for her missing friend, Sam. The story progresses a little slowly in the middle, and then the big reveal turns everything upside down.

The frenetic writing style may feel choppy to some, but it felt authentic to me - it let me feel like I was experiencing the situation as Bailey was, with all the racing thoughts, fears, and theories. I had my suspicions early on about the twist, and I was right - but I had to wait for the reveal to be really sure.

The last section of the story was pretty crazy and unbelievable, and there were a few loose threads in my understanding, but it makes for an entertaining work of fiction that kept me turning the pages. Overall, a solid thriller that was a little more interesting than the typical tropes.