Quick Reviews

The Treasure Hunt Hookup by Lila Monroe (2023)

After a bitter divorce, Ivy has retreated to a small town where she has a quiet but fulfilling life.  However, when her ex-husband shows up, insisting he knows where her family's mystery fortune is hidden, Ivy decides she needs to find it first - with the help of Reeve, a Hollywood director on vacation in her small North Carolina town.  Lila Monroe's books are always a fun time - very steamy, low drama, and plenty of hijinks.  Ivy and Reeve have such good chemistry, and I love that he is so invested - while she clearly has feelings for him, too, he's definitely the one pushing for more.  The story is fast-paced, and while it sometimes seemed that the treasure hunt portion was very secondary to the romance, it was still a fun part of the book, watching them find clues, interpret the meanings, and figure out the next part of the hunt.  Ivy and Reeve are the perfect partners and I thoroughly enjoyed watching their love blossom.  4 stars

She Started It by Sian Gilbert (2023)

Four friends take a trip to the Caribbean, invited on a bachelorette weekend by an old classmate, Poppy.  Little do they know, as they've been keeping secrets from each other, Poppy has some secrets of her own, and she's decided to right some past wrongs.  I've been wanting to read more thrillers, and this And Then There Were None-style mystery really appealed to me.  Although, I do have to say - something about the premise bothered me a bit when I first started reading.  Minor spoilers/trigger warnings: These four friends were absolutely awful to Poppy in school, bullying her relentlessly.  When she appears out of the blue 10 years later and invites them to be her bridesmaids and join her on an exotic (but isolated) vacation, I really wondered why they would agree to it.  Maybe one or two of them, but all of them?  When you find out the things they did to Poppy, it was hard to see how any rational person could go along with this.  In any event, they do, and they are all in for a wild ride.  Gilbert does a great job of establishing the setting of this remote island, with no cell service and bad weather.  I did have a hard time distinguishing between the four friends at first - their voices just all sounded the same and it really took me until the end to grasp their differences.  Poppy is the stand-out character here, though, and the only person I felt any sympathy for.  A bit predictable in some places, but very good twists in others, this book will leave you a little unsettled at the end.  3.5 stars

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