Life is Mean with Rachel Howzell Hall

[00:00:00] What's good, family? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams, the host of Black & Published Podcast, and the author of the novel, The Seven Daughters of Dupree. This historical fiction novel is about the secrets kept between mothers and daughters over the course of seven generations, and is told backwards in time from 1995 to 1860. The Seven Daughters of Dupree was published January 27, 2026, and is available everywhere books are sold.

[00:00:28] So if you can, please consider getting a copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree today. This is the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. In real life, you solve some mysteries, and then there are others that just kind of linger, and you wonder about them. And you can't let them stop you, but they still are there. Mist and malice is not just the physical mist, it's the mist in our lives.

[00:00:57] So malice isn't necessarily coming from the guy with the knife, but the people that we hug. What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams, and this is Black & Published, bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds. We have a return guest to the podcast today. Rachel Howzell Hall is back to discuss her new novel, Mist and Malice. It's book two in the Haven thriller series.

[00:01:22] The novel follows former LAPD detective turned PI Sunny Rush as she uncovers the hellish side of Haven and feels she has no choice but to shed truth and light on the town's dark side. As Black women, we are deputized just for existing. We, you know, a lot of times we say white women are the managers of the world. We're actually kind of the managers of the world. We don't want to be sometimes and we want to just sit down and drink our tea. But duty calls.

[00:01:51] The novel tackles major themes, including race, class, and immigration status. In our conversation, Rachel explains why as a California native, it was time to tackle ICE in her work and how people are being hunted. Plus, the everyday concerns she says we ignore in our neighborhoods. And the one scene she says broke her heart when writing the novel. That and more is next when Black & Published continues.

[00:02:32] Alright, so Rachel, welcome back. Thank you. Thank you. It's great to be back. Thank you. So this is book two in the Haven series, Mist and Malice. And you just drop us on right in where we left off. Yes. It's the missing girl. And a whole lot of bodies are popping up. Did you write all of this at once? Did you have it all mapped out all at once? Or this was just, you know, this is where we're going today. This is where we're going today.

[00:03:00] Because that's what I think life is, where you think you got everything under control. And then that thing happens over there. And it's like, oh, okay. I guess I will go there now. That's what life is. And I knew the story. There would be three books. The next one comes out next year. So I knew that, you know, I like dropping off and picking up because I think that's fun. I think change comes like that for people. It doesn't have to be a whole year has to pass.

[00:03:30] It can be a simple four hours. It's been what a week in the book? Yeah. Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeah. Like last year was last week. The most. Yeah. It's been about a week. All right. Yeah. But then. I mean, we went from Hantavirus to Ebola in a week, right? Exactly. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. Before I logged on, I was literally cackling in my office.

[00:03:55] I saw something on threads that said Hantavirus, Ebola, measles, COVID and influenza all lined up for 2026 Piper World Cup. And I was like. Uh huh. She was your champion. She was your champion. Okay. And that's what I, I, I like that. I mean, I hate it, but that's what life is. It's like, can, can I get a breath? No. No. We can't.

[00:04:18] And you don't stay off of our necks in this book because the missing persons case that we ended off with at the end of fog and fury last year is not what starts this book. That's an added bonus. Yes. There's a whole other missing person that kind of makes up, I can't even say it's the crux of the case. Sunny is doing so much without a badge. Yeah, without a badge.

[00:04:42] And I think, especially as black women, we are deputized just for existing. We, you know, a lot of times we say white women are the managers of the world. We're actually kind of the managers of the world. We don't want to be sometimes and we want to just sit down and drink our tea, but duty calls and someone's got to do it. And Sunny is, you know, she's new enough that she wants to like help.

[00:05:08] But this town is like dog years, you know, it's like I've been here since August and now here I am involved in things that have been bubbling all this time before she even arrived. A lot of this trouble has existed before she stepped in Haven in August. And all the trouble existed before she stepped there. She has kind of deputized herself. What is that sense of duty that is driving her to take on the ugly side of Haven?

[00:05:37] One letter short from heaven that no one wants to discuss or even talk about because they can't under threat of violence. Right. Yeah. Well, part of it is her being a disgraced former LAPD homicide cop and her trying to prove to herself that she still got it.

[00:05:55] You know, that self worth and that that doubt that sometimes creeps through us and overtakes us and makes us say yes to things, not because we want to do them, but to prove to ourselves that we can. So there's that that's driving her. And then there's just the sense of duty that made her want to be a cop in the first place, wanting to help people, period. And then, you know, she's getting paid in some ways.

[00:06:21] She is now a P.I. in this town and her godfather, Ivan, is over the small firm that she's working with. And she wants to get paid and move on to big cases. And she gets her wish with this next big case. And then on top of like solving these cases in Haven and trying to prove to herself that she is still the best detective out there. She's also dealing with a whole lot of personal drama that like it first surface in fog and theory.

[00:06:49] But now, like her mother's dementia is getting worse. Her condition is deteriorating. Her married boyfriend is in the picture still because, you know, his wife turned out to be a murderer. I hope you read the first book because that's a spoiler. My bad. But the journey is still worth it. The journey is still worth it. It's still worth it. And so all of that is happening. And she's trying to get her life together while also solving these cases of a body found in her backyard.

[00:07:18] A girl that she thought ran away shows up on her doorstep along with being threatened for her life. Why do you put this lady through so much in like 24 hours? I know, because I want to see what she does. Because again, I really do think this happens to us. We're so used to it though that we just do it. You don't stop and say, huh, this is all a lot. I'm not going to do this, this and this. We just kind of do it.

[00:07:48] And then we wonder why our shoulders are hard or why our blood pressure is high or why, you know, we're triggered by a song. Because all of this is happening. And it's mean. Life is mean. And I wanted Sunny to be a representation of what we each kind of go through and deal with. And we just don't realize how much it is until someone actually quantifies it. And you can see in a book, it's like, that's a lot. That's a lot.

[00:08:18] But then you stop and think. And it's like, huh, that's actually happening to me right now. That's why, you know, freaking cell phones are a curse because you can't vacate anywhere. The phone is always pulling you in and your kids or your parents who are aging are pulling you in and you're just trying to just exist and you can't anymore.

[00:08:39] And Sunny is, yeah, she's going through all the professional stuff, but then all that personal stuff, which informs how she reacts to the professional. Everything that's going in our lives, our personal lives, affects how we deal with people outside of our homes and outside of our lives. And in some ways, it helps build empathy for people who we don't know.

[00:09:02] And it also, especially if you're dealing with the law, gives us insight on how people move because people are moving just as crooked in your own life as they are, you know, in your professional. So this book is set once again in the town of Haven, Mendocino County, Northern California. It has very much the flavor of what California has been going through specific to immigration and the ice raids and all of that.

[00:09:29] Why was that important for you to put into this story on top of everything else that is already happening? I wanted to talk about small towns and how small towns are now becoming bigger towns through development. Rich people are moving into these little bitty places and building it up. I mean, the same thing has happened to Los Angeles. I live in View Park, Windsor Hills, which is a historically black neighborhood.

[00:09:52] And like every morning I see like at least 12 different flavors of white folks walking up and down the streets with breeds of dogs I never knew existed. And, you know, it's like, yay as a homeowner because my house is worth more. But what is happening to the area is it's becoming very, very expensive and inaccessible to like the younger couple that my husband and I were when we first bought our house back in 2000.

[00:10:17] The same thing is now happening to these small, cute little coastal towns that, you know, you pass through on your way to a bigger place. And in order for those towns to develop, you need labor and cheap labor. And that means an immigration class, an invisible class of people who work the construction, who have always worked our fields. And right now, those people are being targeted by unjust rates.

[00:10:46] They've always been this invisible class of labor, our friends, our families, people who take care of our kids and everything to build up this town that sees them as less, even though the documented citizens are completely trash. Ice has always been a part of California living because we border on Mexico. But with this new administration, it's like extra crunchy and wrong.

[00:11:12] And so it just happened to coincide with what I was already interested in. I wanted to bring up a problem that has just become a part of the larger American consciousness right now, like Minnesota. Who would have thought Minnesota would be dealing with ice? But it's like border towns, we've always kind of dealt with that. But now it's a larger issue. And even in cute little towns that want to become bigger because they're the ones who are being brought in to do a lot of this work.

[00:11:41] Well, I don't even think it's that they're being brought in. And you talk about being an invisible class. I don't know if I even agree that they were invisible. I think they were easily ignored. And under previous administrations, as long as the work was being done, the palms were being greased and the engine was moving and there was no breakdown with it, then it was fine. It was fine.

[00:12:04] But now that we have an occupant in the White House who is enthusiastically xenophobic, nationalist, racist, and white supremacist, it is okay for all those who agree with him to be those things too. And then to follow the directives to go after the very people that keep the country and the economy going. Yes, you're definitely right. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

[00:12:31] And so with you touching on that in the novel, with one case that Sunny is dealing with, you also touch on the missing girl. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say it's a sex trafficking ring. No, it's not. I would say. Okay. So in the sex trafficking ring, you're focusing on people who make headlines as objects, not necessarily as subjects.

[00:12:55] Like they don't make headlines for their humanity or for their name or for who they are as people, but for how they have been objectified. Was that intentional in your crafting of the story and what Sunny was going to be dealing with in this novel? Definitely. Especially, you know, there are some, when you think of sex trafficking, that it has to be this big, bad sex trafficking. And, you know, that's very, very obvious thing when a lot of times it's this kind of quiet.

[00:13:21] Oh, my girlfriends and I are being sent to this house party and we're going to be paid and I can't leave. And, you know, it's like almost this everyday cancer that's just nibbling, nibbling, nibbling, nibbling. And I wanted to talk about that, how, especially with social media, it's so easy for these young people to just be slowly taken away from us and have it being so normalized and them being so objectified because that's what we celebrate.

[00:13:51] We see them on the reality shows commodified and their bodies chopped and it's kind of disgusting and scary. And how a lot of these young folks think that's some sort of love and that as long as he takes me to the mall, it's okay.

[00:14:07] And I wanted Haven and its transformation into this little town, into this bigger town to have its citizens deal with this little thing of flirting with a cosmopolitan sort of life that some of the young folks are going and have it be.

[00:14:26] Yeah, it's not right. It's not right.

[00:15:28] It's not right. It's not right. It's not right. It's not right.

[00:16:12] It's not right. For one. Yes. But then her daughter is not. No. But is she? Right. Really? And so I love the way that you're going to be able to see the other side of the book. So now we're going to be able to see the book. So now we're seeing the first book.

[00:16:34] So now we're seeing the undeveloped side where all the workers live, the tire shop, the local diner where people go, where the blue collar folks eat and stuff and all of that. And to see the real dichotomy.

[00:16:48] And to see the real dichotomy and the resentment that has been bred among the two classes of people, the two sides of the same city that are all in some ways still looking forward to the development because that means jobs are coming and more people are coming and that there's money to be made.

[00:17:05] Do you feel like as long as capitalism is king, all the other problems that we have around class and race are always going to be second because we are always looking forward to make the next dollar? I believe that as a capitalist, I believe that, especially now as I move closer and closer to my 60s, I'm 56 and I'm thinking about retirement and that means I need money.

[00:17:30] So, yes, I want money to live, but I also recognize that is how we're all like trying to live to acquire more and more and more for us. That means that there's going to be someone who is working for us, who's not getting what they deserve in terms of pay and benefits. And if that means keeping down a people and building data centers in that poor neighborhood over there, it will always persist.

[00:18:00] It has to. You can't be a billionaire without stepping on someone else's back. You can't be a thousandaire without someone resenting you for it. I mean, I grew up in the jungles in Los Angeles in that neighborhood over there. And even there, people who have more and there are people who have less. It's class even amongst poor people.

[00:18:22] And for me growing up in Los Angeles, knowing that a lot of the world sees L.A. as the richer areas. And don't discount those of us, as we say, who live south of the 10 in the working class neighborhoods, which are gentrifying because it's cheaper. You know, there's always going to be those who have more and who are exploiting labor to get that more. We have SoFi Stadium in Englewood, which was another historically black neighborhood.

[00:18:50] But now the freaking biggest stadium in Southern California is there now, which means traffic is bad, which means there's more pollution, which means there's more accidents, which means and it's going on and on and on. And like, yay, improvement. Yay, capitalism. But what is that doing to us? It's still creating a wider gulf of the haves and have nots. It's still making us sicker and sicker. It's still doing awful, awful things while also improving our lives. So it's a complicated thing.

[00:19:20] America is a complicated place. It started as a complicated place. And I believe as long as we refuse to address the original sin of this country, which is, well, sins. Like which one? From the obliteration of Native American lands to bringing us over here for the labor, as long as we refuse to address those and remedy those, everything else was just a mess. It can't improve. It can't improve.

[00:19:49] And we will continue to have richer and richer and richer because we're trying to soothe this guilt that can't go away. It can't go away because the cancer is still there. The problem is still there. What we see with Sunny and the people that she meets and the cases that she's taking on is how money makes, it can make some decisions easier.

[00:20:10] So, you know, with her reconnecting with her married boyfriend, we see how money makes her life easier when she's threatened, when her mother's condition deteriorates. We see that with the immigrant who is at the center of one of her cases and his wife, maybe. Not the evil laugh.

[00:20:32] We see that with Honor Butler and her friends and the cast of characters that they become and how because they have money and influence, they are able to escape whatever consequences that should be coming their way. And then we also see that with Sunny's past and her father, we see like his backstory and what happened and how that's trickled into her godfather Ivan's life. And I didn't see that coming. Like the first book, I saw the twist. I was like, it's that lady.

[00:21:01] This one, I was like, I don't know. What's going on? Like the first week I was talking, it's that lady. It's that lady. This one. Oh my God. Yeah. Because again, the monsters in our lives, the monsters outside our doors and you hit it right there. Money solves the things that money can solve, but it doesn't solve everything.

[00:21:25] Because again, if there's an original sin in your life and greed can't necessarily be fed and stated. Greed is something that just arrives through us. We always want more and more and more. And we acquire more and more and more because we're trying to, again, fix that need.

[00:21:43] And for, you know, our Sally Rivas and even Sunny and Ivan, they're thinking that, or even the people who took Figgy, the dog, you know, they're trying to make things, fix something in them. And those things, whether it's a dog or even information to blackmail people, it can't fix it because we, in ourselves, we come here broken.

[00:22:12] And the solution is more spiritual and psychological than, you know, a car or a ring or lots of Etsy customers. Or a condo in Sableport. Or a condo in Sableport. Yes. Yes, that's right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Did you always know that was going to be the twist in this book? Yes. The reveal at the end? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because there was no solution for that.

[00:22:43] And it's, even in book three, that's still not the solution. I have no idea. I guess I'll find out next year when we reconvene this conversation. Because I'm like, I don't know. And I like that because in real life, you solve some mysteries. And then there are others that just kind of linger and you wonder about them. And you can't let them stop you, but they still are there. They still are there.

[00:23:09] Sunny finds out some things about her father, but that'll never be resolved because he's not there to help resolve it with her. Mm-hmm. And so that's going to continue to eat at her forever and ever. Especially as, you know, her mother continues to lose her memory and she's offloading stuff. Yes, between the past and the present. I'm just like, sis, what timeline are we in? Well, and that's the thing.

[00:23:34] It's like, I mean, as a Gen Xer and all my friends were all dealing with aging parents who are now kind of like offloading. Like, well, this happened. Here it is now. You deal with it because my memory's going or I don't want to deal with it anymore. And okay, thank you. As you continue to, you know, move toward your end. What do you do with that? So yeah, she's in this place where it's like, what the fuck? Really?

[00:24:03] Because I, you know, I'm at a place where it's like, I'm coming out of that now where everything was happening all at once. Everything, everywhere, all at once, which I love that movie. But that's what life is, you know? Acquiring barnacles and then having some scoured off only for more to grow on. Sunny gets a box and she opens the box.

[00:24:24] And it is filled with so many different things that begin to shed light not only on her parents, their marriage, their relationship, their financial status. But also why she was really summarily released from her work as a detective in Los Angeles. Because the way that she was, even though she did fuck up, like it could have gone a different way had it not been for the sins of her father.

[00:24:51] Was that something that you wanted to give her to kind of add to the burden of what she was working through as she's trying to cobble together a new life? And she still has to shed at least she's not done shedding the old one. Yeah. Oh my God. I love talking to you. Yeah, I wanted her to do that because a lot of times we wish and wish and wish to know things, right? We want to know. We want to know. We want to just cross that off and move ahead. And she gets her wish. And it's awful. Yes, I know things now.

[00:25:22] But oh my gosh, really? This is worse than what I thought it was. And now what do I do? Because in some ways I am still powerless. I am still lacking. I am still far away from resolution. And yes, I intentionally wanted her to learn the truth. And from her mother, who again has finally admitted that her memory is slipping and slipping and slipping. And here you go, darling.

[00:25:51] I love you. Kiss, kiss. I'm going to be over there. And even with, you know, she has her bestie India holding her hair as she's like dealing with what was in the box. But even that, even Cooper loving her and giving her a place to be, it just can't soothe what's happening with this truth. And again, she's rolling up that rock. And it's falling down on the center. She thinks she's finally getting what she wanted.

[00:26:20] And what does that even mean? Will we ever? That's the bigger question. Will we ever be satisfied? And I was talking to someone earlier because in the book, she plays satisfied from Hamilton over and over. And that was basically her theme song for this book. Will I ever be satisfied? I don't think you can be. Because the more you know, the more you know.

[00:26:46] And if you know it, that means there can't be resolution. I think the sins of our fathers, our mothers, our legacies, it just is. And you have to come to a point where you accept it and you mourn it, but you can't dwell there. And now, especially as we go into book three, she has to determine if she's going to dwell there or, you know, continue to dig away to get to the bottom of things.

[00:27:16] Hmm. It breaks my heart. Writing that scene really did viscerally do something to me because I think we all have moments like that in our lives with families or lovers or someone who just drops things. You want to know? I'll tell you. And they drop it. And then it's like, what now? This hurts. This really, really hurts. Especially if you've been trying to do your best.

[00:27:45] You've been working hard and being good, whatever that means to you, being good. And it's just not enough. And you're so tired. You're so tired. So I think that's a great place to have you start reading from this book so that we can go a little further into Sunny's story. Yes. Mist and Malice by Rachel Howzell Hall is book two in the Haven thriller series. It picks up right where the first book left off.

[00:28:13] Former detective turned P.I. Sunny Rush is reeling after solving the case of a murdered football player when a missing girl shows up on her porch step. But it's a missing man and a body in her backyard that really sent her down the rabbit hole to uncover Haven's true power players and the lengths they'd go to keep their secrets secret. Here's Rachel. I am going to read early in the book where she's about to start her case.

[00:28:40] She gets into an Uber and she has this random conversation with the driver as she's leaving Sableport to head back to Haven after spending a weekend drinking good California coastal wine. We've all had those weekends with you're turnt up and it's lovely and you got to go back home because you always got to go back home. The fog had cleared and now I could see almost all of Haven.

[00:29:09] Three square miles had been crammed with those qualities that made California a spectacular state. North of San Francisco and filled with redwoods and rolling hills speckled with California grapes on one side and an ocean filled with tall kelp forests on the other. Tourism drove the economy here and there had been a push to revitalize the old and expand the town's boundaries to make it new. From forcing aging businesses to finance facelifts for their storefronts to courting and landing new companies to make a home here. Some residents were all in for the developments.

[00:29:39] My landlords Elliot and Giovanni had moved their bakery from San Jose and served as Haven's poster boys of economic growth. Some residents were against the expansion and they didn't want more diversity, not in food, not in politics, not in people. Pride flags had been burned and only four full-time black residents, mom, Lori and Devin Monroe, and me, called Haven home. Change was coming to this town, no matter how many flags were burned, no matter how much blood was spilled.

[00:30:07] Axel, her Uber driver, slowed for the red traffic signal. Just like we all must figure out why we're here, he said, as well as our purpose in life, so must this town. How to live? I said, hmm, not really caring about Haven's identity problem.

[00:30:36] I'm worried more about how they treat each other, not necessarily how they slap on new paint and host golf tournaments. Axel made the right turn that would take us to downtown Haven. But isn't it all related, he asked? How to live? With each other? With ourselves? In a place bustling with its own anxiety and identity crisis? I squinted at him and smiled. Your accent? Cameroon, he said with a toothy grin. Former philosophy professor, I asked. And part-time professional mourner.

[00:31:06] He paused and added, a lot of research and studying doing both. It comes in handy for this job, too. I tossed him a smile and turned back to look out at Haven. My eyes burned from too much wine and not enough sleep. And I thank heavens that Axel didn't need to take Highway 128, the most beautiful, twistiest, and deadliest road I've ever driven. Since moving to Haven, I had yet to wrap myself around a redwood or run headlong into a logging truck.

[00:31:32] However, London Sutton had tried to run me over in a parking lot off that deadly highway. And I thank the fates again that she failed. The charming storefronts of downtown Haven stood out from the fog. Roll, roll, roll your dough. Already had a line of old folks wanting to eat German pancakes and bacon. Shoppers at Good Pickings pushed carts heavy with bottled waters and boxes of long neck Coronas.

[00:31:56] Sweet Life still pushed out cinnamon rolls and lattes, even though the bakery's three principal bakers were miles away, setting up for a wedding. Yes, Mayberry by the sea smelled of fried sweet dough and fresh brewed coffee, spilled wine and sea salt, and anyone could taste it all from the air if they tried. So many secrets hid all around this coastal paradise, and I now mined those secrets and stored them in the file cabinets of pool investigations.

[00:32:22] Since my arrival to Haven just weeks ago, two young people had been killed and life had moved on. That was the fucked up thing about living. Even as the worst things that could happen to you did happen, you still had to brush your teeth, pee, blink, and see the world move on even as you moved on too. Even as grief pressed down on your shoulders, like all the gravity in the universe, even though your own heart kept beating as your lungs threatened to quit and your mind threatened to drown you with so many thoughts.

[00:32:52] Thank you. I underline that last paragraph you read because that's really grief that she's describing. And I can only imagine what she's going to be dealing with in book three because she hasn't really processed her feelings, even though we know she goes to see this therapist, allegedly.

[00:33:14] And she has her coping technique where she names states and capitals and countries and books of the Bible to try to bring herself down. She's doing so much work that she doesn't have time to be still and really process the fact that people are trying to kill you, friend. Yeah, girl, over there. And over there. Right, like in the house with you.

[00:33:40] Is that something that you are saying specifically to Black women that you know maybe stop? Yeah. I mean, again, we were brought over here, you know, 300 years ago to work. And, you know, this fantasy that, you know, make it like it was in the 1950s where women were home. We were never home. We were always labor, free labor, forced labor, all kinds of labor. And we didn't have time to mourn.

[00:34:10] We didn't have time to mourn our homelands. Our families being rested and torn apart. We just had to keep moving forward because moving forward meant living. And I wanted to bring that into our now where the world is a mess. This country is a mess. And we try to keep trying to fix this place. But we can't. But we won't give up. We can't give up. We have to keep moving forward. But that doesn't give us time to say, this is hurting.

[00:34:39] All this hurts. Our body hurts. Our spirits ache. We see the better. It's over there if we just stop and listen and just listen to us. We know because we've been here and we can't, which means we can't do our own work. And we have to rely on coping techniques just to exist and how it works for the moment. But things just keep building and building and building.

[00:35:07] And I know in my life, I have a lot of anxiety. You know, whenever I do take a moment to go to get a massage or something like that, the person working my shoulders are like, you know, it's not supposed to be that hard, right? And I'm like, I know it's like stratified here. Because that's where I wear my stress. I'm doing the work. I'm checking off the boxes. But there are things that are left behind because I can't stop to fix those things.

[00:35:35] So when I see certain things trigger me, either for good or bad, when I go to Disneyland and I see Fantasmic, I've seen Fantasmic 30,000 times. And I know what Mickey's going to do. And I know the story. I cry. When I see fireworks, I cry. Because it's tapping into either the romantic in me or the person who's mourning and grieving a life that's past, problems that are back there. But I've moved on.

[00:36:03] They're petroleum for, you know, future generations of me. And for Sunny, it's the same thing. She is us. And even with people who don't wish her harm, they're still loading things on her that she wants to fix, but she can't. She wants to fix India, her best friend's life. She wants to, you know, slay that dragon for her mom.

[00:36:29] She wants to move past and be finished grieving for her father. But her mother's still there. And her mother was complicit in a lot of things that went on. So she can't. But she has to move on. She doesn't have time to stop. Mist and malice is not just the physical mist. It's the mist in our lives. And malice isn't necessarily coming from the guy with the knife, but the people that we hug.

[00:36:54] It's, you know, even with, you know, she quotes Sartre, this essentialism and all the rest of it. And it's depressing in some ways. But what are you going to, what are you going to do except say, yeah, this all kind of sucks. And let me, you know, deal with it in some ways. And she finds some relief in her relationship, her growing relationship with Figgy.

[00:37:20] Because animals, dogs, cats, pets have always been that kind of like emotional release and place of comfort for her. But you mentioned like, you know, it doesn't come from people who wish her harm. And it makes me think that it's fine if there's no one who's wishing her harm, but there's no one who's actively wishing her well. And that is problematic. It is problematic. It is problematic.

[00:37:46] And those that you would expect would wish her well or would wish us well are still expecting some kind of labor from that. I also think that as Black women, though, we don't even sometimes recognize that there is no one who is actively wishing us well because we accept that it's good enough to not be wished harm. And even for ourselves, do you feel bad for wanting to like do well sometimes?

[00:38:13] Do you like, here I am living my, living as best as I could. I'm not doing enough. Why should I be so happy when those people over there aren't thriving? I feel this sometimes when going on vacation, like going to the Bahamas, one of the most beautiful places in the world, right? And you drive through the neighborhoods to get to your resort excursion and there's poverty right there. And you feel bad, especially when they look like you.

[00:38:42] So you can't even like let yourself be happy for you because, again, people are hurting around you and you care about those people. So we can't even wish well for ourselves sometimes without that guilt saying, how dare you? How dare you have a good time when there are people who are making less than $5 an hour who are peeing in buckets in the place right over there?

[00:39:06] You know, it's such a complicated thing, this living thing that Black women, I think especially, we feel responsible for all of it. And we won't allow ourselves sometimes to just say, hey, I deserve this. Because especially if you've grown up in a church, that is not allowed. It's not allowed. So we're stuck. We are stuck. I don't know what the answer is. I just write about it. Obviously.

[00:39:35] I think my favorite line in the book, though, like that, that illustrates that was when Sonny says, I just want my silk press to last for a full 24 hours. And I was like, so seen. Like, you just got your hair done. You're feeling a little bit better. It's a silk press. You know, you can shake it for the gods. And he's like, I just want my silk press to last for a full 24 hours. I was like, I feel you, sis. Little blessings. Little, little blessings. Small things in life. It is a small thing.

[00:40:05] That's why I think that I like when you go on vacation or anywhere, the airport is a perfect place. It's a liminal space where it's like, I feel okay with paying $14 for that bottle of water. I feel okay with, you know, getting this mid-tier burger. But I'm in a place where, you know, there is no beginning. There is no end. If I don't look out, I don't know what time it is. And it's fine. Little things. Little, little, little things.

[00:40:34] And if that's driving in your nice Bronco with this golden doodle singing Lauryn Hill, you take it. Because the dog likes it. So I'm okay. Her and Figgy had a time. Okay. What is it that you want readers to take away from Sunny's story in this installment of the Haven thrillers?

[00:40:58] Looking for those little moments where you can find some relief because life just keeps rolling and it's not going to stop. So if there's some place, something that you can hold on to that gives you some clear sky and some peace, grab onto it and stop and love it until you can't anymore. I am learning how to do that more and more.

[00:41:25] It's hard for me to just stop and say, that's kind of cool. So that's what I want readers to think about more. The little wins that come across your life, hold onto those because it's just relentless, especially now in a world where we don't celebrate smart. We don't celebrate kind. We don't celebrate things that you used to take for granted. So we have to make those things. We have to make those moments.

[00:41:54] And so then my final question, I know you can't tell us much about book three. I'm not going to even ask, but I am going to ask, does Sunny get some rest at the end of book three? Does she get to sit down somewhere? Yes. She gets to sit down somewhere and she gets to look out at the view of a California wine country. I love that for her. I love that for us. I do too. I do too.

[00:42:17] Because we're all going to get at one point in our lives to look out at California grapes and just say, this is cool. Big thank you to Rachel Housel Hall for being here today on Black & Published. You can follow Rachel on the socials at rhouselhall on Instagram and threads. And make sure you check out Mist and Malice, out now from Thomas & Mercer. You can get a copy of the novel from Mahogany Books and get 10% off your first purchase using code BLACKPUB at checkout.

[00:42:47] That's B-L-K-P-U-B. That's our show for the week. If you liked this episode and want more Black & Published, head to our Instagram or our YouTube page. It's at Black & Published and that's B-L-K-AND-Published. There, I've posted a bonus clip from my interview with Rachel about what she loves most about writing in the thriller genre and the way it allows her to discuss bigger topics and themes.

[00:43:14] Make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments. I'll highlight y'all next week when our guest will be Deshaun Charles Winslow, author of the novel The Fervent Whites. What I try to do in my fiction is I try to, especially when it comes to race, I try to make room for blind spots. Because I think that very well-meaning people, and in this case we're talking about race,

[00:43:44] but I think very well-meaning white people sometimes do racist things without even realizing it. That's next week on Black & Published. I'll talk to you then. Peace. What's going on, family? This is Derek Young. And Ramonda Young.

[00:44:11] Owners of both Mahogany Books and the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. We really want to thank each and every one of you for listening to this episode. And if you enjoyed what you just heard, drop us a review and rate us on whatever platform you download podcasts on. We truly appreciate each and every one of you for supporting us and making us your go-to for Black books. And we look forward to connecting with you all sometime in the future. Thank you again, fam. And always remember, Black Books Matter.