In this “hypnotic, violent, unsparing” (A.J. Banner, USA TODAY bestselling author) thriller from the author of the “haunting, twisting thrill ride” (Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author) The River at Night, a young woman leaves behind everything she knows to take on the Bolivian jungle, but her excursion abroad quickly turns into a fight for her life. Lily Bushwold thought she’d … life.
Lily Bushwold thought she’d found the antidote to endless foster care and group homes: a gig teaching English in Cochabamba, Bolivia. As soon as she could steal enough cash for the plane, she was on it.
But the program was a scam. And bonding with other broke, rudderless girls in the local youth hostel wasn’t the answer. Falling crazy in love with Omar, a savvy, handsome local who’d left his life as a hunter in Ayachero–a remote jungle village–to try city life: this was the last thing Lily could have imagined.
When Omar learns that a jaguar had killed his four-year-old nephew in Ayachero, he gives Lily a choice: stay alone in the unforgiving city, or travel to the last in the ever-more-isolated string of river towns in the jungles of Bolivia. Thirty-foot anacondas? Puppy-sized spiders? Vengeful shamans with unspeakable powers? None of it matters to love-struck Lily. She follows Omar to a ruthless new world of lawless poachers, bullheaded missionaries, and desperate indigenous tribes driven to the brink of extinction. To survive, Lily must navigate the jungle–and all its residents–using only her wits and resilience.
“Gripping, breathtaking, and exquisitely told–Into the Jungle pulls you into another world, returning you forever transformed” (Wendy Walker, USA TODAY bestselling author).
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What an adventure! I know I wouldn’t be able to live in the jungle with all the dangers, bugs and heat. The book started slow for me, but by the end I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. Lily follows Omar to his home village to live and learns skills to survive and ultimately save her, and her baby’s lives. Fantastic book, and I highly recommend
Well I am happy to report that this is one book that really delivered! It’s not a thriller in the sense of a psychopath on the loose but I certainly found it thrilling and exciting to follow this young woman into the Bolivian jungle. This was real, true adventure, with thrilling scenes between people and animals and this is the animals home and we are not welcome. All that the indigenous women do every day are the things they need to do to survive, helping prepare the animals after they are killed, washing clothes, tending to many children and waiting for their hunter husbands to return. I think I know a bit more about the jungle than I did before, enough to know that I won’t be visiting it any time soon!
Reading the prologue I was already pulled into the book, unable to really fathom what the author had in store for me. The scene where Lily was being constricted by a python was in part “I couldn’t take my eyes off the grace of her as she coiled her ever thicker body around my knees now, wrapped herself around my thighs, pelvis, groin. Head swinging, unsupported, she opened her mouth . . . . . .and said aahhhhhhhhhhh! And this was just in the prologue.
I really liked this book because of the great characters. Lily Bushwold is a 19 year old young woman who had come to Cochabamba, Bolivia because of the promise of a job. When she gets here there is no job, she has little money and is pretty much stuck in Bolivia until she can make enough money to get out.
She meets a young native Amazonian named Omar and they quickly fall in love. Within a few weeks they are both off for Ayachero the very small town where Omar is from. He was called home because his nephew was killed by a jaguar and they need Omar to help hunt the animal.
After this there is pretty much something going on all of the time, and I mean this in a good way. I really liked that the character of Lily really learned and grew with the story as did Omar. Theirs is described as such a true, all consuming love, I really felt for Lily every time they had to be apart.
She has to learn how to use a blow dart effectively and know where the kind of frog that has the poison for the dart lives and how to prepare and store the darts. There are so many things that can bite, scratch, claw you, poison you or flat out maul you to death, that there is always more that Lily has to learn. Don’t forgot about the infections and diseases that can also kill you in this heavily insect infested jungle (no thanks I can hardly handle mosquitos!)
Other notable characters besides Lily and Omar include two missionaries known as “The Harriets” they do try to teach the Bible but they also love the people there and have come to know them, doctor them and in many ways they help each other, I loved these two!
We also have a telepathic shaman that Lily may or may not be able to communicate with and a river boat captain named “For God’s Sake” and I’ll leave you to find out the origin of that name.
What kept this book from being a solid 5* for me was that I just couldn’t believe it was all plausible, but that’s o.k., this is fiction. I really liked this book, it was well written with characters that I could get into and care about and the research must have been extensive for this book. The author does state that the book is partially based on a friend’s actual experience.
I received an ARC of this book from the publisher through Edelweiss.