Perfect beach read! I really enjoyed this one by Rachel Hawkins. The main character, Lux, was likable and I thought the POV was exciting. There were some twists and turns, especially towards the end, that I did not see coming! I would recommend this book for anyone wanting a character driven thriller with a distinct "The Beach" vibe. Remember Leonardo DiCaprio in that movie?! I read a lot of thrillers and thought this one was fresh, exciting, and suspenseful. Highly recommend!

This book was SO good, so, so "unputdownable".

I love a closed room mystery...always. But throw in a spooky island, some douchy guys, some reckless girls and some witty observations and I am all in.

I absolutely could not put this book down. I was antsy when I wasn't reading it, eager to get back to it and find out what was going to happen next.

So well written and such a great ending, I cannot recommend enough!

Thank you to the publisher for gifting me a copy, it is my pleasure to write an honest review.

Who hasn't dreamed of sailing away to a deserted desert island? No one, just me! Well, the rest of you were so much smarter, because Meroe Island has a dark and sordid history. Why are all the good islands already inhabited?
Lux followed her boyfriend Nico to Hawaii, planning to join him on an epic sailing adventure. Unfortunately, his boat gets damaged, and when he can't pay for the needed repairs, Lux is stuck. She is working at a dead-end job and wondering how her life has gone so wrong.
When Nico is hired by Brittany and Amma, it seems like the answer to Lux's prayers. His boat will get fixed, they will make some money, and best of all, the girls also want Lux to join them. They will sail to Meroe Island and spend two glorious weeks away from reality.
Anticipating solitude, they are thrown when they find another couple, Eliza and Jake already on the island. As the dynamics between these six people ebb and flow like the tide, a seventh visitor, Robbie arrives. Suddenly, it seems no one is who they appear to be, and the island's cursed reputation might actually be true.
I loved the remote island locale and since this publishes in January when I will most likely be buried under snow and ice, this would be a great escape read in front of a warm fire. Every character has either secrets, is a liar, or just isn't a good person. Everyone's true nature will be revealed and nothing will be the same after this once-in-a-lifetime trip to paradise. I didn't love how everything ended, but I thoroughly enjoyed the ride.

This was a solid 3 stars for me. It was a quick read and enough action that I was entertained but it also felt slightly lacking. Maybe it was all the characters aligning somehow. Maybe it was that I saw the details coming from the start which made it slightly less exciting this time. Either way it just felt overall eh. One of those books you pick up, enjoy, then move on.

Lux and Nico are hired by two girls named Anna and Brittany to sail to an mysterious island named Meroe. Sounds and looks beautiful but has a creepy past. Off they go and when they get there another couple named Eliza and Jake are there. All becomes happy and a party until well.. it isn’t.

It was a fun book and I would recommend it for a nice easy breezy read.

Thank you netgalley and St. Martin’s press for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

Okay, a little semi unpopular review is about to come up!

Firstly, I want to talk about things I truly enjoyed about my reading. Then I will explain why I got disappointed and fell out of love with this book!!!

It is delicious combination Di Caprio’s Beach meets Lost Tv series ( a.k.a worst ending series in the TV history) with Lord of Flies, And Then There Were None and a little Dead to Me vibes ) Amma and Brittany’s story)

Claustrophobic island theme is always a big winner for me: think about a haunted place called Meroe Island which is best known for the shipwreck that gave it is name. Up until World War II, sailors of HMS Meroe were marooned on this place and eventually some of them turned into cannibals to massacre the rest of sailors to survive. Only 8 of them survived, convicted and hanged.Did you get hooked? I was definitely sold as soon as I read this info!

Our story takes place in the same place. 6 people’s paths crossed on the island. They seem like vacationers, adventurers whose ages range from 22 to 30! All of them are running from something: their past mistakes, grief, losses, redemption etc.

Let’s introduce the characters one by one and tell who they chose to gather at the weirdest place to have their life changing journeys.

Lux, 25 years old, dropped out of college to take of her sick mother who lost her battle to the big C, working at waitressing jobs to make ends meet because her a.hole father remarried and he did nothing to support his child.

When she meets golden boy Nico, charming, reckless, adventurous boy, who is coming from wealthy family, having recent quarrel with his parents, planning to sail to Hawaii, Lux’s life completely changes. She follows him to Hawaii. As he is having time of his life, she works as maid at a hotel to save the money to repair their boat.

The day she is sagged, Nico gives her brilliant news( actually this is argumentative) He got an offer from two college besties: Amma and Brittany to sail them to Mereo Island (actually it is not an island, it is an atoll. )

They offered him fifty grand. The plan is simple: instead of taking fifty, the girls will pay for repairs of their boat Susannah and after they leave the girls on the island, they can go anywhere they want. They don’t need to stuck in Maui.

Brittany gives friendly, social Golden Retriever vibes from the beginning, as Amma is more introvert, observant, cold and she seems like getting too friendly with Nico. ( sneaky bi*ch alert! )

Well, at least when they arrive to the island, they will never have to see them again. But their plans change as soon as they realize they are not alone at this place. A rich and charming Aussie man and his gorgeous boyfriend already started their own party. Jake and Eliza seem like nice and loaded. They also like to share their goodies and lots of booze. So they both stay and join them.

But when a stranger joins their party: their perfect friendship starts crumbling. The lies they told, the secret they kept start to come out! The island brings out their inner demons and when all hell breaks loose, their exciting adventure turns into a vicious massacre that only one of them could survive!

Well:
Pros:
Claustrophobic island theme, heart throbbing pace, intriguing before-now time lines
Tragic back stories of three characters
Riveting mystery keeping you in your toes

Cons:
I was so close to give five stars to this book but the entire last third of the story was wobbling, bumpy road. The big revelation of the story was a little bit nonsense for me. I screamed to my ereader in the middle of the night ( the book was so intriguing and I stayed up all night and went to bad while I was still cursing to the ending! )
“What whattttt! Is this it! No it can’t! I want better explanation! It needs alternative twist! “
I think the author pushed too hard to create that big scheme. The message behind the characters’ motive was powerful but the execution was not good enough. There were still so many loop holes.

I still devoured this book in one sit. Its ending was not as bad as Lost TV series but I think this brilliant author whose entire books were devoured by me can wrap up the entire story with more satisfying conclusion.

I was expecting more! Especially the promising beginning and riveting pacing gave me so much hope. So I stick with my solid three stars.

I’m looking forward to read next work of the author. I’m sure the next one will be better!

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

The audience for this felt a bit younger to me that Hawkins' previous books, so I'd particularly recommend it to teen readers who like thrillers. Loved the LORD OF THE FLIES-ish creepy remote island setting!

A quick read, with an ending that I didn't totally see coming. The reveal felt a little muddled to me though and overall I felt like it was just ok.

Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins didn't wow me. I have loved the previous books by this author, but this one just didn't hold my attention. A group of young people goes to a deserted island only to discover their true nature. There is sexual innuendo, acting on that, lots of booze, drugs, and hidden money. While the setting was interesting, the characters fell flat and seemed extremely shallow. Lux, the main character was the only one with a little chutzpah throughout even though she questioned herself at times. Overall I was disappointed in this story. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy.

RECKLESS GIRLS is a great beach book. Hawkins' descriptions of life on a boat and on a beach are so vivid you can smell the salt air and feel the sand beneath your feet. It's a twisty tale of suspense with some interesting revelations at the end. Decent read.

I've read Rachel's work before (and follow her on social media), and was thrilled to be given an advance copy of Reckless Girls (aka: Boat Murder!) to read. The timing was absolutely perfect, as I was going on vacation right when it arrived. I found the book to be SUPER entertaining to read and hard to put down. The characters were fascinating, there were a lot of great twists and turns, and the ending was excellent and left me wanting more. I think this would make a fantastic movie! It's too bad that the book isn't officially released until January 2022, as this is a PERFECT summer/beach read, but hey - there are still beaches and summer weather in some parts of the world in January! Highly recommend.

Reckless Girls is another fantastic thriller by Rachel Hawkins! Her first novel, The Wife Upstairs, was a gripping page turner, and Hawkins does not disappoint with this sophomore novel.

Lux is living in Hawaii with her boyfriend; they are working to save up money to repair his boat and sail around the world. Nico, her boyfriend, meets a couple of college aged girls that offer him an obscene amount of money to sale them to Meroe Island. Meroe is deserted, but there are many sinister tales of individuals meeting their demise while on the wild shores of Meroe.

Lux and Nico agree to sale the girls to Meroe, but upon arriving after days of sailing, they discover that they are not the only ones seeking adventure on the isolated island. Although the two groups befriend each other, there are the expected tensions between groups of people staying together that are essentially strangers, and this propels the story to its unexpected ending.

Reckless Girls is the story of 6 individuals on the isolated shores of Meroe and how their experience changes each of them and brings out their true colors. The story is mostly told from Lux’s point of view as she develops her sense self and her own dreams for her future. I couldn’t put this one down!! What a page turner - I kept trying to connect the pieces! Not one to start at bedtime. You’ll want to grab a copy of this when it’s available.

Thank you to Rachel Hawkins, NetGalley, and St. Martin’s Press for an advance copy of Reckless Girls. Pub day is January 4, 2022!!

This book is SCREAMING to be a movie!!! I had a hard time putting this one down until the very end.
When Lux and her boyfriend Nico take two girls on a sailing trip to a deserted island, they’re expecting some fun and making some easy money. What the get is SO much more. Every time I thought I had it figured out, something else happened to blow my mind. Rachel Hawkins weaves the story so well, until you are sitting with a pit of dread growing in your stomach. You can feel the humid air and hear the ocean slapping the sand! So, so good!!!

I received an invitation from the publisher to read/review an ARC of this upcoming mystery/thriller from Rachel Hawkins. Having read and enjoyed one of the author's previous works, The Wife Upstairs, I was happy to accept the invitation.

Reckless Girls does not measure up to The Wife Upstairs. In many entertaining novels, one needs to suspend disbelief and let yourself go along with the ride the author is taking you on. But I just get the feeling that anything about this story was remotely real.

It is about a small group of young people who come together, partly by happenstance, on an uninhabited and deserted island on the Pacific Ocean. The narrator of the book is a young woman named Lux,who meets up with a guy (Nico) with a boat on Maui. Nico gets hired for $50,000 (!!!) to take two young women to this small island. There they meet another couple, who also have a boat. And money. And drugs.

The little island has a spooky history and the rest of the story of these young people adds to this spooky history. But the characters don't seem real, the interactions between the characters are pretty random and the end result of this adventure is pretty morbid.

Previous reviews are far more favorable. The story did move at a good pace and there were many twists. But I had higher expectations.

Last year, I was given The Wife Upstairs, to review. Having loved it, I jumped at the chance to review Reckless Girls as well. I was not disappointed.

I found Reckless Girls to be a couple shades darker than the Wife Upstairs. I spent a lot of the book feeling uncomfortable, but to be fair, I hate boats and a deserted island sounds like a nightmare to me, even without any dead bodies. My discomfort didn’t detract from how much I enjoyed the story though, it only made it feel more tense. That’s never a bad thing when reading this kind of story.

I was so excited to get this book after loving The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins. I felt a sense if unease through this entire book even when I wasn't sure why! I loved the setting and for the most part the characters but the ending put it at a 4 star for me as I felt like it just didn't make sense. Overall a great read that I would recommend to others!

Loved, loved, loved this mind blowing good book! Better than her first book; riveting, unique, fast paced, and unputdownable!! Really snoring me just how good of an author Rachel Hawkins is! Tension so thick you can cut it, twisty turns, thrills, chills, depravity, and shocks! Well written, with fantastic character development! Highly, highly recommend! Definitely clear your schedule before you start, as it’s one you won’t want to stop once you’ve started!

Will buzz around and use top Amazon reviewer number on release date!

Rachel Hawkins is one of my favorite authors! This book was so good!! I was thrilled that I was approved to read this book and sat up all night to finish. I highly recommend this book and every other book she has ever written.

Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read this book!

Say hello to a tight, twisty thriller that will make you stay up at night clinging to every word.

It takes you to the middle of the Pacific Ocean at a place called, "Meroe Island," named after a shipwreck. It's described as heavenly with the brightest blue colors of the sea comforted with warm waters. It seems to be a destination of choice except there's no drinking water, the fish have toxins, the jungle is dark and the visitors have a tendency to get sucked in without ever having a chance to leave. Only a few brave travelers go there.

Lux was living in San Diego when she met her boyfriend, Nico, while working at a restaurant. He was the reason she moved to Hawaii to be with him in spite of her poor living conditions. She despised her job as a housekeeper and it wasn't fun living in a crowded tiny house. She hoped they would be living on Nic's sailboat, "The Susannah," named after an old girlfriend. But it had problems that were expensive to repair. Nic had a job at the marina making low wages. His family, however, was beyond rich with houses all over and millions made from the stock market. But he refused to ask his father for money.

Then there was hope for a better life. Nico said two girls on vacation were willing to pay him $50,000 to take them to Meroe Island on his sailboat. Lux wasn't going to be left behind. It sounded like trouble was brewing with these two beautiful girls but Lux realized they needed the money. He managed to get the boat in gear and all four made it to their destination through a wicked storm only to meet another couple already anchored with their beautiful boat, "Azure Sky" filled with luxuries.

Like many thrillers, I had questions in my mind if this could ever happen. All the characters were well described and the plot was fast moving. With clues, it's sometimes easy to predict the ending but not with this book. I enjoyed it as much as her previous book, "The Wife Upstairs." It took a lot of thought and research to create all the clever movements of this story,.

My thanks to Rachel Hawkins, St. Martin's Press and NetGallery for allowing me to read this book to be released in the beginning of 2022.

Hawkins is fast becoming my favorite author. This book has everything I love in a story—including the secluded island which I’ve loved since I watched the first episode of LOST. With two giant twists I never saw coming, a whirlwind of secrets, lies, and betrayals, and a sun-soaked setting, this is—without a doubt—my favorite read of 2021!

Are you tired of being nice? Don't you just wanna go apeshit?

Do you have those authors that you just trust? An author that you'll read anything they write even if it's not your usual cup of tea? Rachel Hawkins is one of those authors for me.

I was able to read an early egalley of this and WOW. So lush. So sinister. I had an unshakable feeling of giddy unease through the whole book. We meet a group of people who all seem to be looking to escape to paradise, temporarily, at least. Unfortunately for them, paradise becomes a claustrophobic nightmare in this Beach Gothic. The kind of book you don't want to put down. The kind you want to finish in one sitting because you've got to know what that reaction meant. Incredible and gasp-worthy by the end. Loved every word.