Four famous siblings, one unforgettable party, and a Malibu mansion that burns by dawn — Taylor Jenkins Reid at her most propulsive, narrated by Julia Whelan.
Malibu, August 1983. It's the day of Nina Riva's legendary end-of-summer party, and all of Malibu wants in. The Rivas are famous: Nina, a surfer and supermodel; Jay, a championship surfer; Hud, a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit — the children of the legendary, long-absent singer Mick Riva. But beneath the glamour, each sibling is carrying something: Nina has just been very publicly abandoned by her tennis-star husband, Hud is sitting on a confession that could break the family, and the night ahead will force all of them to decide what they'll keep from the people who made them — and what they'll leave behind. By morning, the mansion will be in flames.
Malibu Rising is a showcase for Julia Whelan's range. The story moves between a single escalating day and the flashbacks that explain how these four siblings became so fiercely bound to one another, and Whelan gives each Riva a distinct interior life while keeping the propulsive, sun-and-saltwater momentum that made the book a Read with Jenna pick. She handles a large supporting cast without ever losing the thread, and her pacing turns the countdown structure into something genuinely tense. By now, Whelan and Taylor Jenkins Reid are a proven duo — and this is one of their most purely enjoyable collaborations.
Taylor Jenkins Reid fans, readers who love a juicy family drama with long-buried secrets surfacing over a single day, and anyone wanting a glossy, fast summer or road-trip listen. If you devoured Daisy Jones and Evelyn Hugo, this is the obvious next pick.
If you prefer a single tight protagonist over a rotating ensemble, the multiple siblings and timelines may feel busy. And if you have no appetite for celebrity-soaked melodrama, this leans into it without apology.
Listen to it. It's the breeziest, most binge-able of Reid's big audiobooks, and Whelan makes the four-sibling structure sing. The perfect bridge between her heavier hits.