REVIEW:

Let’s get reckless and do a math review, shall we?

+15 points = That cover! You’re going to pick this up with the expectation that it’ll be a page-turning beach read, right? Well good news! What you see is what you get.

+15 points = The setting. Reckless Girls is a “locked island” thriller that plops seven 20-something characters on a remote South Pacific island where some creepy things have happened in the past. It’s like “Bachelor in Paradise” meets “The Island of Doctor Moreau” (minus Marlon Brando in pancake makeup and a mumu, praise jeebus).

+70 points = Length + suspense. This book can, and easily might be, binged all in one go. I had a hard time putting it down after I started and finished it in a day.

-5 points = The colorful-yet-uncreative language. So many F-bombs are dropped it’s a wonder the entire island doesn’t explode. 206 of them to be exact.

-5 points = The title. Fine, I guess the girls here are reckless, but the men sure aren’t any better. It just as easily could have been called D-Bag Guys. Not a good one in the bunch.

-10 points = The ending. After a very twisty and complicated plot, readers are left with a final act that wraps things up The Lamest Way Possible. (See my Goodreads bio for hint/spoiler.) Seriously??? Sigh.

Extra credit = The audiobook. Narrator Barrie Kreinik is new to me, but I will most definitely be looking up what else she’s done. Her skill taking on the voices of multiple characters with varying accents and genders is worth a round of applause. I highly recommend this format, though you’ll miss out on the Acknowledgements at the end of the print/ebook version where Hawkins shares that Reckless Girls was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream to write a “boat murder” book.

My thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Macmillan Audio for the gifted ARC and ALC to review via NetGalley. The expected US publication date is January 4, 2022.

PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS:

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.