This is part of my Summer Reads series where I’ll be sharing book recommendations – a series of “not just cookbooks”.
As many of you long-time readers will know, I’ve been running Summer Reads since 2014 – sharing reading recommendations each Monday in June, July and August (whoah – that’s a lot of books!). This summer, I’m excited to join Book Sparks Summer Reading Challenge – “The Book Odyssey” and over the course of the summer I will be receiving and reviewing a few books selected by Book Sparks over on Instagram and some of which will find their way here too!
The first book arrived last week and as soon as I started reading it, I KNEW it was #summerreads material! It’s classified as “detective and mystery fiction” but it’s so much more than that – case in point, the cover blurb, definitely an irresistible teaser!
From the publisher:
This is a story about a definitely dead girl, a possibly dead girl and a living dead girl. All aboard.
There are a lot of things that pop culture aficionado Melanie Hoffman is great at: rattling off storylines from The Real Housewives, reciting the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen filmography from memory, and quoting Gossip Girl like it’s The Godfather, to name a few. And then there are the things she’s not good at: maintaining a healthy work-life balance, sleeping (in general), and being a functioning adult who isn’t completely destroyed by the death of her best friend, Ari. Mel has accepted that nothing will ever fill the crater-sized hole that Ari’s absence has left behind, and the cork on her grief is stopped tight. But then her company requires Mel to take a mandatory vacation. Cue the explosion.
Desperate to avoid two weeks alone with her thoughts, Mel joins her friend Vish on a yacht trip in Greece chartered by his tech company. It’s the Below Deck fantasy of Mel’s dreams, with built-in quasi-celebrities to fixate on in the form of the posh co-founders of Vish’s company. Mel has done enough social media stalking to immediately typecast the fabulous yet fragile Freya, her arrogant boyfriend Seb, and the hardworking and humble Ollie. A luxurious yacht chockful of hot, rich Brits? Mel couldn’t dream up a better distraction from her sorrow.
But Mel’s dream quickly plunges into nightmarish waters when a sinister conversation overheard in the dead of night convinces Mel that Freya is in danger. And when Freya turns up missing the next morning, Mel immediately clocks what happened with the skill of a rabid true crime fan: Freya was murdered, and Seb is the prime suspect.
But Freya’s disappearance doesn’t rock the boat in the way Mel is expecting. In fact, no one else onboard seems to think anything’s fishy. Mel’s concern for Freya grows into obsession, and she becomes dead set on saving Freya’s life like she couldn’t save Ari’s.
With her time left on the yacht quickly dwindling, Mel must uncover what happened to Freya before going under herself.
This is Erica Hendry’s debut novel and all I can say is WOW! This was immediately giving White Lotus vibes but once the action moved to the boat, it smacked of The Woman in Cabin 10 with (more than) a dash of Below Deck. For a mystery, I sure did laugh a lot! It’s witty and, at times, laugh-out-loud funny – packed with current pop-culture references – but there is a lot more going on than just a witty, cleverly written mystery.
A perfect summer read – join Mel and the cast of characters for a (kinda) locked-room mystery (with some occasional forays off the boat) with something for everyone – a glamorous setting (both the boat and Greece), the mystery of what happened to Freya, Mel’s journey through her grief, a billion pop-culture references, a dash of romance and other intrigue related to Vish’s company that unravels through the book. For me, Mel wasn’t super likeable at the start but she definitely grew on me as we learn that much of her unlikable behaviour stems from her grief. You’ll be required to suspend disbelief at more than one juncture in the story but that’s part of the escapist fun!
Did the plot go “overboard” at times (see what I did there?)? For sure! Does it all tie together to make an entertaining, page-turner that kept me up far too late on a weeknight? Also yes! An EXCELLENT summer read – I can’t wait to see what Erica Hendry has in store for us next!
Buy Let’s not go Overboard Here on Amazon (this affiliate link should bring you to the Amazon store in, or closest to, your country).
For free worldwide shipping, find Let’s not go Overboard Here on Blackwell’s.
Support your local Indie bookstore and purchase Let’s not go Overboard Here on Bookshop.org.
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Please note: This post contains affiliate links. I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. This post also contains affiliate links for Blackwell’s and Bookshop.org. This means that if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price (at no extra cost to you). Thank you in advance!
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Disclosure: I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I am not receiving any compensation for reviewing the book. Neither the author nor the publisher reviewed this post prior to publication. All opinions are my own.
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