Reckless girls

Rachel Hawkins, 1979-

Book - 2022

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&...#039;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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Subjects
Genres
Psychological fiction
Thrillers (Fiction)
Suspense fiction
Mystery fiction
Published
New York : St. Martin's Press 2022.
Language
English
Main Author
Rachel Hawkins, 1979- (author)
Edition
First Edition
Physical Description
312 pages 23 cm
ISBN
9781250274250
9781250282323
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Lux has misgivings when her boyfriend, Nico, accepts a sailing charter from a pair of young tourists eager to visit deserted Meroe Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. On the other hand, she figures it was sailing that brought her and Nico together, and the prospect of rekindling the romance has appeal. College friends Brittany and Amma prove good companions, too, and everyone enjoys the trip, even as they battle a dangerous storm and shake off the growing unease planted by Nico's stories about the island's dark history. Turns out, they aren't the only ones seeking the island's solitude; easygoing Australian playboy Jake and his girlfriend, Eliza, are also anchored in the cove. The six twenty-somethings fall into an easy camaraderie until the arrival of crass interloper Robbie reveals myriad secrets that set off a cascade of infidelities and disappearances. Lux finds herself in the center of a well-planned murder plot, pitted against killers determined to avenge the abuses of the entitled elite. Lux's sharp-edged narration becomes increasingly harrowing as she realizes that, on Meroe Island, it's everyone for themselves. Revisiting the class divides that drove her best-selling The Wife Upstairs (2021), Hawkins twists revenge, madness, and an increasingly menacing setting into a cleverly plotted nightmare in paradise. A must-read for fans of Ruth Ware.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The success of The Wife Upstairs has prompted serious buzz about Hawkins' follow-up.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

The hope of Lux McAllister, the protagonist of this diabolically plotted nail-biter from bestseller Hawkins (The Wife Upstairs), that sailing the Pacific with her hot new boyfriend, Nico Johannsen, will help put a tragic past behind her stalls in Maui, along with Nico's damaged boat. Then a pair of strangers, college besties Amma and Brittany, offer the couple a huge sum that covers the boat's repair to take them to remote, notorious Meroe Island. Insecure Lux accurately anticipates sexual tension among the four 20-somethings during the voyage; what she doesn't expect is to arrive at their middle-of-nowhere destination to find a luxury catamaran already anchored off the beach, GQ-ready twosome Jake and Eliza on deck. Later, while exploring the island, Lux is alarmed to stumble on a skull clearly too fresh to be from the 1821 shipwreck that gave Meroe its name. As tempers fray and tensions mount, Lux belatedly realizes she has unsuspectingly ventured into treacherous waters indeed. Though several of the startling twists leading up to a killer climax are as arbitrary as those in Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (itself among Hawkins's apparent inspirations), this thriller still makes for dangerously addictive reading. Agent: Holly Root, Root Literary. (Jan.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Seeking escape from a going-nowhere job and deep family sorrow, Lux McAllister agrees with boyfriend Nico to sail two young women to an island in the South Pacific, never mind its past history of shipwrecks and bloodshed. They're surprised to discover a yacht anchored in the bay, with bright and shiny couple Jake and Eliza aboard, but everyone bonds happily. Then the scary stuff starts. Following the New York Times best-selling The Wife Upstairs; with a 200,000-copy first printing.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Beautiful, rudderless 20-somethings find trouble in paradise. San Diego waitress Lux McAllister has led a joyless existence since quitting college to care for her dying mother, so when hunky customer Nico Johannsen invites her to sail the seas with him aboard his new boat, the Susannah, she accepts. They arrange to rendezvous in Hawaii after Lux ties up some loose ends, but when she gets off the plane, she learns the vessel sustained damage en route. Nico can't afford the repairs, so rather than living aboard the Susannah as planned, the pair starts crashing in a cramped house with four other people while Lux cleans hotel rooms to make ends meet. When adventure-seekers Brittany and Amma, both 22, offer Nico $50,000 to rent a boat and take them to Meroe Island--an uninhabited Pacific atoll with a gruesome history--Lux extends a counteroffer: pay to fix the Susannah, and the four of them will spend two carefree weeks exploring the place together. Though the voyage proves harrowing, Meroe is stunning, and they bond instantly with wealthy, hedonistic fellow travelers Jake and Eliza, whose catamaran is in the harbor when they arrive. As the days stretch on, however, tension mounts, and the group's idyllic existence takes a dark turn. Evocative prose and a palpably foreboding atmosphere complement Lux's present-tense narration, which Hawkins studs with flashbacks exposing the secrets, lies, and betrayals that brought each character to this point. Danger and interpersonal drama abound, with a slew of outrageous twists adding to the fun. A soapy, claustrophobic page-turner. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.