Something Wilder, Christina Lauren

For someone who chose to live in the woods for 5 months in my youth, this book sounded right up my alley. I’m a fan of surviving and exploration, so Lily is a girl after my own heart. Her walls are thick; she’s had to learn to build them since childhood. But, unfortunately, walls are not easily broken, especially when you’ve been let down and abandoned your entire life. So in between what can go wrong, two people are learning each other after ten years apart. What an absolutely dramatic book!

I loved the puzzle element at play in this story. The book focuses on disaster and comedic relief more than the romance, which would have been nicer to explore. I was hoping for more of what happened 10 years ago and more of their reconnection. But the differences make the story unique. This writing duo has said, here’s our story and our villain, and they ran with it. Where others have seen this as a plot issue, I see it as the book’s strong point. As the reader watches things go from bad to worse, Leo and Lily rally to survive the stacked odds against them. This is a fun read, and I enjoyed all the varying elements. Thank you, Gallery Books, for sending this along!

Something Wilder is available for preorder on Amazon, Bookshop, and B&N, it releases May 17th.

About the Book

About the BookGrowing up the daughter of notorious treasure hunter and absentee father Duke Wilder left Lily without much patience for the profession…or much money in the bank. But Lily is nothing if not resourceful, and now uses Duke’s coveted hand-drawn maps to guide tourists on fake treasure hunts through the red rock canyons of Utah. It pays the bills but doesn’t leave enough to fulfill her dream of buying back the beloved ranch her father sold years ago, and definitely not enough to deal with the sight of the man she once loved walking back into her life with a motley crew of friends ready to hit the trails. Frankly, Lily would like to take him out into the wilderness—and leave him there.

Leo Grady knew mirages were a thing in the desert, but they’d barely left civilization when the silhouette of his greatest regret comes into focus in the flickering light of the campfire. Ready to leave the past behind him, Leo wants nothing more than to reconnect with his first and only love. Unfortunately, Lily Wilder is all business, drawing a clear line in the sand: it’s never going to happen.

But when the trip goes horribly and hilariously wrong, the group wonders if maybe the legend of the hidden treasure wasn’t a gimmick after all. There’s a chance to right the wrongs—of Duke’s past and their own—but only if Leo and Lily can confront their history and work together. Alone under the stars in the isolated and dangerous mazes of the Canyonlands, Leo and Lily must decide whether they’ll risk their lives and hearts on the adventure of a lifetime.

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Read this review on Goodreads and Bookbub.