The Jewel of the Isle - Softcover

Rea, Kerry

 
9780593815649: The Jewel of the Isle
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593815645 ISBN 13: 9780593815649
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

Two very indoor people rough it on a remote island after getting swept up in an archaeologist’s hunt for a famed jewel in this dazzling new adventure rom-com by Kerry Rea, author of Lucy on the Wild Side.

If Emily Edwards knows one thing, it’s that you don’t go to a remote island by yourself. Ever the type A personality, Emily doesn’t want to hike around an unfamiliar island, but she’s determined to fulfill her late father’s national park bucket list, starting with Isle Royale National Park—home to wolves, bears, and hundred-year-old shipwrecks. She has no choice but to hire a tour guide, and there is only one that isn’t booked solid.

Ryder Fleet, co-owner of Fleet Outdoor Adventures, wouldn’t call himself a wilderness expert, and he definitely doesn’t know how to find true north. But when his dormant adventure guide business suddenly finds life again after a random inquiry, Ryder somehow finds himself on a ferry to Isle Royale with a very beautiful, no-nonsense woman. What this woman doesn’t know is that his brother Caleb, who died two years ago, was the outdoorsman of their business, while Ryder just did the marketing. But how hard could it be to hike up a few mountains?

Pretty difficult, actually, when murder is involved. Emily’s perfectly planned trek turns disastrous when she and Ryder witness a brutal crime and are suddenly forced to evade a group of archaeologists on the hunt for a jewel. As they spend nights together too close for comfort, they realize their shoddily built fire isn’t the only thing that’s kindling, and that they must trust each other if they want to escape the island with their lives—and hearts—intact.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kerry Rea lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband, two sons, and their small army of dogs. She grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, and graduated from The University of Notre Dame. She believes that happily ever after is always possible.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

One

Emily

Jason dumps me while I'm wearing a bucket hat.

When I look back on this someday, I think that's the detail that will haunt me the most. Not that he broke up with me halfway through our weekly out-and-back hike, meaning we had to spend three very awkward miles together on the way back to the trailhead. And not that he dumped me for a professional dog walker named Piper who somehow wears overalls and a fanny pack without looking like a harried mom at Disney World. I won't even be most disturbed by the fact that he broke up with me three weeks before we were scheduled to take a very important, very nonrefundable trip to the most remote national park in the lower forty-eight.

It'll always be the bucket hat.

It should be one of the basic rules of being a decent person. Like don't wear white to someone else's wedding and don't date somebody who's rude to the waiter, don't dump your girlfriend while she's wearing a hat with an adjustable chin cord seems like basic manners.

I knew the hat was a bad idea. When I studied my reflection in the REI changing room, it practically sparkled under the harsh fluorescent lighting. It had a sun-protective neck nape and a reinforced brim that could best be described as nauseating, with tiny blue fish stitched onto the yellow canvas. It was horrifying, and I looked horrifying in it.

"I can't tell if I look more like a large toddler or a grandma on vacation," I told my sister Brooke, who squinted at me as she, too, tried to figure it out.

"Both, I think," she said finally. "I can't decide. But buy it anyway. You don't want skin cancer."

So I bought it. But now, as I'm sweating my butt off in the ninety-degree heat and listening to Jason explain that it's him, not me, but it's also kind of me, I regret my choice. It's like the time I went on a midnight ice-cream run wearing a tunic and sweatpants tucked into snow boots only to run into my handsome ex and his new girlfriend. They spotted me carrying four cartons of cookies 'n cream to the checkout, two tucked under each arm, and today is still worse. Because at least then I had dessert.

Today started out like every other Saturday for the past six weeks: I woke up, second-guessed my life choices while I hastily ate a protein bar, and drove with Jason to Hocking Hills State Park, where we strapped on our backpacking gear and hit the trail. By hit the trail I mean that he pranced over tree roots and muddy puddles with the grace of a nimble deer, and I tried my best not to slip on a wet leaf and break my leg.

Before we reached the first mile marker, however, I knew something was up. Jason, who rowed crew in college and gives off Tony Perkis from Heavyweights vibes when engaging in athletic endeavors, usually doesn't mind that I hike at the pace of a decrepit turtle. It's not that I'm lazy-my sixth-grade PE teacher wrote, Emily tries hard, so that's something! in the comments section of my report card-so much as wildly unathletic, and Jason usually peppers me with encouragement that borders on grating. But today, he didn't remind me that The longest journey begins with a single step! when I tripped on a rock and landed on my ass. Nor did he cheerfully inform me that Nothing is impossible; the word itself says I'm possible! when I mistook an Eastern milk snake for a rattlesnake and watched my life flash before my eyes. He just hiked silently, not even whistling as we started the steep ascent toward the turnaround point.

If I had oxygen to spare, I would have asked him what was up. But because cardiovascular exercise robs me of my breath and my general will to live, I focused on pushing through the burning ache in my muscles. Turns out I didn't have to ask anyway.

"Emily," Jason says once we reach the trickling waterfall that marks the turnaround point. "I need to tell you something."

I freeze. Hardly anyone calls me Emily; it's always Em or Emmy or Dr. Edwards. Even Jason's mother, who once snidely described my taste in living room decor as Cracker Barrel gift shop, minus the subtlety doesn't call me Emily. That's because she calls me Emma, but still.

"Um, okay," I say, wondering if he's about to announce that Taylor Swift died or something. The last time he went this many hours into the day without humming "Eye of the Tiger," he was about to tell me that Bed Bath & Beyond was closing forever. And Bed Bath & Beyond was my happy place. "Shoot."

He takes a deep breath, as if steeling himself to drop a bomb. "I can't go to Isle Royale with you. Because, well, because I want to break up."

I would have been less surprised if he told me he drank deer blood and sparkled in the sunlight. "Huh?"

"I know how important the Isle Royale trip is to you, and I can't go," he says, nudging a rock with the toe of his hiking boot. "It wouldn't be right."

I blink at him as my brain tries to assemble the sounds coming out of his mouth into something that makes sense. Isle Royale National Park, a jagged stretch of island in Lake Superior so remote that it can only be reached by ferry or seaplane, is my emotional and physical Everest. It's also the site of the super important backpacking trip Jason and I are scheduled to take in T minus twenty days and counting. The super important trip that he's bailing on, apparently.

"Em?" he asks, waving a hand in front of my face. "Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

His voice sounds muffled and tinny, and I wonder if the suffocating early September humidity is making me hallucinate. Surely my boyfriend of two years isn't dumping me right before the one week I'll desperately need his love, support, and ability to carry a shit ton of camping gear on his back.

"Water, please," I croak, rubbing my throat and pointing to the canteen fastened to Jason's day pack.

He passes it to me hurriedly, watching with wide eyes as I lift the canteen to my lips and gulp like my life depends on it.

"I, um, I know this is probably difficult for you to hear," he says, his eyes going even wider as some of the water goes down the wrong pipe and I break into a coughing fit. "But I think it's best for everyone."

I sputter again, so loudly that I startle a family of robins from a nearby oak tree. It's definitely not best for everyone for me to attempt a solo backpacking expedition in a national park that lacks potable water and cell service but has plenty of wolves and moose. It's certainly not the best thing for me. The closest I've ever come to camping is watching Troop Beverly Hills on repeat as a kid, and I single-handedly ruined Wilderness Day for my entire fourth grade Girl Scout troop in a hapless attempt to make daisy chain necklaces. (Note to self: if you can't find any daisies in the forest and sub in a leafy green plant instead, make sure that plant isn't poison ivy.) Unlike Jason, I am not built for surviving a week in the great outdoors. I'm built for appreciating a good pair of cashmere socks and reading Nora Roberts books by the fireplace.

"The thing is, you haven't been yourself this last year," Jason continues, studying me with mild alarm as I frantically dig through my day pack for a granola bar. "You've been really distracted, which is understandable. Considering, you know, what happened."

My fingers locate the bag of peanut M&M's that are supposed to be my post-hike treat, and I tear it open so roughly that half the candies fly out. What happened is that on a chilly October afternoon eleven months ago, my dad died. One second Jason and I were eating Chinese takeout on the couch, and the next I was answering a frantic call from the tearful bookstore owner who watched Dad collapse in the checkout line. Roger Edwards Jr., a bearded, bear-hugging guy who still listened to baseball on the radio and never watched a World War II movie that didn't make him misty-eyed, had suffered a...

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593815645
ISBN 13 
9780593815649
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
336
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

Europaallee 1
Bad Hersfeld
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