Review: The Jewel of the Isle by Kerry Rea

The Jewel of the Isle by Kerry Rea
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was provided an ARC of this book via Netgalley and the Berkley Besties program.

Emily is not an outdoorsy person.  She loves her creature comforts, but her father was an adventurer at heart and loved exploring.  He had a bucket list of places to visit, and he wanted his daughters to experience them with him.  Life and anxiety got in the way, but his untimely passing has Emily determined to visit some of the places he wanted to see and face some of her fears.  Ryder is also not and outdoors expert, he is more of the behind the scenes marketing guy.  He co-owned an adventure company with his beloved older brother Caleb, but when he was left to run the business alone after a horrible accident Ryder is crippled by his grief and the business is failing.  In an attempt to save Caleb's beloved boat from being sold, Ryder takes on Emily as a client and agrees to guide her through Isle Royale National Park, but it quickly becomes apparent that they both don't have a clue what they are doing.  They also get caught up in an Indiana Jones type of archaeologist jewel hunt and murder situation that leaves them running through the park for their lives.  Armed with a compass they can barely use and some protein bars, they have to learn to work together to escape with their lives.

This had some really  great discussions about anxiety, paranoia, grief, guilt, and loss of a loved one.  I thought the author captured the adventure and action parts well.  There were some humorous moments threaded throughout the book, but given how often our main characters were stumbling around with their lack of outdoorsmanship and the frequent mention of glow-in-the-dark toilet paper (I didn't know that existed and I've been tent camping all my life), I expected more of a laugh out loud book from start to finish.  I wanted a bit more comedy given all of the ridiculous situations our characters are put in in this romcom.  

Overall this was a fun book.  If you like opposites attract, adventure style romances with a bit of comedy, give this a go.  

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