Something Wilder by Christina Lauren: A Review
This audiobook was fun and thoroughly entertaining. A friend told me to go into this with an open mind knowing there are elements that are more in In a Holidaze tone than with The Soulmate Equation and I was all for it. I adored In a Holidaze and it’s a book that I probably will re-read every December (as long as I can chill enough with the arc requests to be able to).
If you’re looking to be taken on an adventure, Something Wilder provides that and more with the tale of a struggling tourist guide who takes customers on treasure hunts using maps her treasure hunting dad created. While it’s not the future she was envisioning, she doesn’t want to be anywhere else but close to the canyons of Utah. Enters the man who broke her heart a decade earlier, Leo who unknowingly agrees to a trip with his friends that ends up being with the same adventure tour Lily runs.
Listening to this story felt like I was watching an adventurous movie. There are cowboys, shooting, treasure and romance. Picture Indiana Jones and the old Western movies combined and you have Something Wilder.
The narrators were wonderful and did a great job differentiating all of the characters’ voices.
Thank you Simon & Schuster Audio for the advanced listener's copy. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Book Description
Growing 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.