Genre: Gothic Suspense
Publisher: St. Martins Press
Release Date: Jan. 4, 2022
Order Link: Amazon
My Rating: 4 Haunted Hearts
Special thanks to the publisher for an arc of this book.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Wife Upstairs comes a deliciously wicked gothic suspense, set on an isolated Pacific island with a dark history, for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware.
Review:
Lux McAllister is at loose ends, working odd jobs trying to keep a roof over her head when she meets golden boy Nico - a charismatic rich kid, the black sheep of his wealthy family ready to sail off around the world. Lux falls fast and hard and joins him aboard his boat to sail to Hawaii. There she works cleaning motel rooms while Nico wanders as he pleases until two college friends offer him fifty thousand dollars to sail them to the deserted Meroe Island for two weeks in paradise. Just sand, surf, sun . . . and an eerie island history of shipwrecks, cannibalism, ghosts, murder and more. Meroe Island may or may not be haunted, but it's one gorgeous setting for four young people seeking adventure. When they arrive and drop anchor, they find another couple there before them so they all become friends and let the champagne and good times roll. Just another day in paradise, right?
Reckless Girls sets sail at a fast clip from Lux's point of view as she joins Nico for the adventure of a lifetime. However, once everyone gathers on the island, it quickly becomes obvious that each of these six people are hiding dark secrets and harboring malevolent thoughts and intentions. They each have a personal agenda, and readers slowly learn some of their background from chapters set in the past which begins to cut through the smoke screen surrounding these people in the present. It's never quite clear who to trust and who not to turn your back on. Things really begin to come to a head with the arrival of another boat and a dark stranger with cold eyes. Paradise begins to unravel, bodies show up and boats disappear. I was one hundred percent in at least three fourths of the way through - couldn't put the book down even though I can't say I ever formed a tight reader/character bond with any of the characters. And then the big reveal at the end came, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it.
Reckless Girls explores the dark, inner emotions in people that are only drawn out under the extremest of conditions - life or death type situations or situations where people stand to lose something they're not willing to give up and so they embrace their dark side. It explores what people may do when their backs are against the wall with only one perceived way out for survival. It's a winner take all story where only one person can walk away with the gold. I found it to be well paced and plotted until near the end where it floundered a bit for me. I highly recommend everyone read this and decide for yourself. I'm sure many will say it couldn't have ended any other way, and they're probably right. In thinking back over the story as a whole, it was always headed in this direction. For fans of mystery, suspense and dark thrillers.
Synopsis:
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.
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