The Burning Hour — Jessica Inclan / Jessica Barksdale Inclan

The forests, mountainsides, and grasslands around the Ruby Valley of Nevada are tinder dry and languishing in the cooking heat of a landscape awaiting release from the mounting temperatures and desiccating sun. With just one spark the entire world could go up in flame. With countless generations upon this land and proudly defending their Indigenous heritage, Wanda Mapp and her family find their world and their lives to be at the center of the slow-building firestorm that threatens to release or consume them all. Nick Delgado is on his first tour on a Bureau of Land Management fire crew in the area. Delgado finds himself in the midst of longstanding tensions over the land and resources of the area. The Burning Hour is a novel of the physical and spiritual place that is the Cortez Mountains of Nevada. Moreover, it is a novel about the manner in which the physical world acts to bring many different lives together and shape the people they become and the world they may inherit.