Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins
Publisher: St Martin’s Press
Publication Date: January 4, 2022
Genres: Mystery/Thriller
Book Review
Lux followed her boyfriend Nico to Hawaii on his promise that they would travel the world once they had earned enough money. But now she’s stuck in a rut working a dead-end job. When she and Nico are offered a job sailing two women to a remote island in the Pacific for a staggering amount of money, they eagerly take it. The island is every bit the paradise they expected. But the island has a dark history, and the passengers are hiding dangerous secrets.
Reckless Girls is told in two separate timelines. One timeline is told in the present in the first person from Lux’s perspective. The other is told in the third person and follows passengers Amma and Brittany detailing how they met, as well as fellow island visitor Eliza and how she came to be on the island.
I enjoyed this one. You have no idea who to trust, including the narrator. I loved trying to figure out how each of the characters connected and the mysterious island. The island was such a fabulous setting, but also incredibly dark.
This is a book that will keep you up late at night with your heart in your throat. I thought the ending wasn’t worth the hype, but the rest of the story was great!
Thank you to Netgalley and St Martin’s Press for the review copy! All opinions are my own.
Synopsis from Goodreads
When Lux McAllister and her boyfriend, Nico, are hired to sail two women to a remote island in the South Pacific, it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. Stuck in a dead-end job in Hawaii, and longing to travel the world after a family tragedy, Lux is eager to climb on board The Susannah and set out on an adventure. She’s also quick to bond with their passengers, college best friends Brittany and Amma. The two women say they want to travel off the beaten path. But like Lux, they may have other reasons to be seeking an escape.
Shimmering on the horizon after days at sea, Meroe Island is every bit the paradise the foursome expects, despite a mysterious history of shipwrecks, cannibalism, and even rumors of murder. But what they don’t expect is to discover another boat already anchored off Meroe’s sandy beaches. The owners of the Azure Sky, Jake and Eliza, are a true golden couple: gorgeous, laidback, and if their sleek catamaran and well-stocked bar are any indication, rich. Now a party of six, the new friends settle in to experience life on an exotic island, and the serenity of being completely off the grid. Lux hasn’t felt like she truly belonged anywhere in years, yet here on Meroe, with these fellow free spirits, she finally has a sense of peace.
But with the arrival of a skeevy stranger sailing alone in pursuit of a darker kind of good time, the balance of the group is disrupted. Soon, cracks begin to emerge: it seems that Brittany and Amma haven’t been completely honest with Lux about their pasts––and perhaps not even with each other. And though Jake and Eliza seem like the perfect pair, the rocky history of their relationship begins to resurface, and their reasons for sailing to Meroe might not be as innocent as they first appeared.
When it becomes clear that the group is even more cut off from civilization than they initially thought, it starts to feel like the island itself is closing in on them. And when one person goes missing, and another turns up dead, Lux begins to wonder if any of them are going to make it off the island alive.
About the Author
Rachel Hawkins is the New York Times bestselling author of The Wife Upstairs, as well as multiple books for young readers, and her work has been translated in over a dozen countries. She studied gender and sexuality in Victorian literature at Auburn University and currently lives in Alabama.
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Erin Evelyn Reads 