Book Review for Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins

 Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins 

Hardcover, 320 pages

Publication: January 4th 2022 by St. Martin's Press

Genre:  Mystery Thriller, Adult Fiction

 

From Goodreads:  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.

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.

My Thoughts: I was looking for a thriller. I picked up Reckless Girls looking for a book that would hold my attention and keep me guessing. I was kept guessing, I enjoyed reading the past and putting it together with what was currently happening. The story was not as much of a thriller as I was hoping for but I still enjoyed the book.

I really enjoyed getting to know Lux. She was a unique character who was just trying to enjoy life. She connected with Nico in the hopes of seeing the world with him while using his boat but then the twists started coming. I liked that she questioned the rest of the group while at the island and she did not take everything at face value. I felt for her that she was alone in the world and kind of stuck in a situation that she did not see coming.  The rest of the characters are selfish, controlling, and up to no good. Even when they were getting along and having fun, I could feel that there was an underlining reason for being on the island.

The setting of the island of Mereo was interesting. I like that it was a unique island and the author used plenty of word to describe it so I could easily picture where the story was set. I struggled to connect with any of the characters, even Lux. As the twists and turns came, especially the ending, I struggled with how it was all coming together. I liked that I did not see the ending coming at all, but it just did not work for me.

Reckless Girls is a easy read, I read it in just over 24 hours. It is a unique story with many twists and turns.

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Meet Rachel Hawkins: (Taken from Rachel’s Website) Rachel Hawkins was born in Virginia and raised in Alabama. This means she uses words like "y'all" and "fixin'" a lot, and considers anything under 60 degrees to be borderline Arctic. Before deciding to write books about kissing and fire (and sometimes kissing while on fire), Rachel taught high school English for 3 years, and is still capable of teaching you The Canterbury Tales if you're into that kind of thing.

She is married to a geologist, which means that they have incredibly strange dinner conversations ("So today at work, I wrote a chapter where killer fog, like, ATE PEOPLE." "Huh. Well, I was chased by an angry reindeer while trying to map parts of Norway." "Um...okay.")

Rachel also has a little boy whose main hobbies are playing video games, running around in circles, and plotting his Future Intergalactic Take-Over.

When not writing books, Rachel enjoys reading, travelling, and knitting (very terribly.)