Nina also meets Casey, a young woman wandering around the party, who turns out to also be Mick’s daughter. Brandon begs Nina to take him back, professing his love publicly and forcing her to say “yes.” At the party, Nina realizes Ashley and Hud are sleeping together, as Ashley tells Hud that she is pregnant. Just before seven, Brandon appears and tells Nina that he wants to come home. Nina and her siblings meet at the restaurant for lunch and go surfing together. Hud agonizes over how he will tell Jay about his relationship with Ashley. Kit hopes to kiss a boy for the first time at the party. She is the only one he has told, so he confirms that she will be at the party. In the present, Jay seeks the attention of Lara, a woman he recently slept with, feeling comforted by her belief that he will be okay despite his newly diagnosed heart condition.

She married professional tennis player Brandon Randall in 1982. Eventually, she was discovered surfing and became a professional model, using the money to support her siblings. Nina became her siblings’ guardian, dropped out of school, and took over the family restaurant. When June died by drowning, Mick did not reach out to his children. June drank more and more, so her children took care of themselves. However, before long, Mick left again for good. After that marriage ended in divorce, Mick returned to June. June forgave Mick for his affair, but eventually, he left her to marry another woman. After he and June had Nina and Jay, a woman appeared at June’s door while Mick was on tour-Mick fathered her son Hud, whom she leaves with June. The siblings’ parents, June and Mick Riva, met in Malibu just as Mick was beginning his career as a singer. Their youngest sibling is their sister Kit, who is going into her junior year of college. Jay has appeared via Hud’s work three times on covers of surf magazines Hud is sleeping with Jay’s ex-girlfriend.

Nina has two brothers: Jay, a professional surfer, and Hud, a surf photographer. Her husband recently left her after having an affair, and she dreads people asking her about him that night at the party. Nina Riva wakes alone at 7 in the morning. The person who started the fire remains a mystery. The Malibu fire of 1983 began on August 27, the day of Nina Riva’s annual summer party. The prologue opens with Malibu’s history of fires. This study guide refers to the 2021 edition published by Ballantine Books.

Her 2019 book Daisy Jones and the Six won the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award in 2020. Malibu Rising is the seventh of Reid’s novels.

Malibu rising book