VBT# Lost in the Fire - Robin Mahle
Review: Lost in the Fire - Robin Mahle - July 2026
This is the third of Robin Mahle's books I've picked up through the Zooloos Book Tours, and after enjoying the first two so much, there was no way I was passing this one by when I saw it on offer. There's something lovely about finding an author whose books you can trust to deliver, and Mahle has become one of those for me.
Lost in the Fire doesn't ease you in gently. It opens with real force, the main character's house going up in flames, and within the first few pages we lose both her husband and her son to the fire. I'll admit this part gave me pause, as a mother myself I kept thinking, surely your first instinct is to go for your child? It sat a little uneasily with me, but it didn't stop me turning the pages.
Avery wakes up in hospital afterwards with amnesia, and this is where the story really gets its hooks into you. She can't remember being married. She can't remember having a son. And now everyone around her expects her to grieve for a husband and child she has no memory of loving in the first place. It's such a heartbreaking, almost impossible position to be in, how do you mourn a connection you can't feel? I found myself really sitting with that question long after I put the book down.
Five months on, Avery meets a co-worker and things move fast, engaged before you know it. That's when the story shifts gears completely. Old friends from her past start warning her away from this new fiancé, and then, one by one, they start turning up dead or simply vanish. Was he somehow tangled up in the fire that took her family? Did she know him before the accident stole her memories? The not knowing, right alongside Avery, is what makes this such a gripping read.
Robin Mahle has a real gift for psychological thrillers that keep you guessing until the very last page, and this one is no exception. It's the kind of book you curl up with meaning to read one chapter and then realise it's midnight. If you love a slow-burn mystery with real emotional weight underneath the suspense, Lost in the Fire is well worth adding to your shelf.
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