Reckless Girls: A Novel

Reckless Girls (2021) is a thriller by American author Rachel Hawkins. Hawkins is known for her fast-paced writing, and Reckless Girls joins the ranks of bestsellers The Wife Upstairs (2021), The Villa (2023), and The Heiress (2024)—her most popular novels. Hawkins has additionally published books for middle grade and young adult readers, including the Hex Hall series and Rebel Belle trilogy. Hawkins’s plot-driven mysteries and thrillers feature strong female characters and explore the complexities of female friendships both in adolescence and adulthood. 

Reckless Girls follows protagonist Lux McAllister as she travels to remote Meroe Island with her boyfriend, Nico, and college friends Brittany and Amma. Meroe is a tropical paradise, but it was once the site of a shipwreck made infamous by allegations of cannibalism. In the decades since the wreck, it has become a popular, off-the-beaten-track tourist destination, but rumors swirl about unexplained happenings, shark-infested waters, and the presence of other dangers lurking in the island’s dense jungle. 

Nico, Brittany, and Amma are excited about the prospect of visiting such a storied place, but Lux has anxiety about the trip even before they embark. After a perilous ride on stormy seas, the group arrives on Meroe to find another pair of sailors already there. This couple seems affable and friendly, but they are soon joined by a third, more sinister stranger. Tensions rise as strange and eerie things begin to happen, and the group finds themselves contending with strained relationships, betrayals, and ultimately several murders. Thematically, the novel explores The Psychological Impact of Isolation on Group Dynamics, Trust and Betrayal in Relationships, and Female Agency and the Reclamation of Power. 

This guide refers to the 2021 paperback edition published by St. Martin’s Press. 

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of illness, death, graphic violence, substance use, and cursing.

Plot Summary

As the novel begins, protagonist and narrator Lux McAllister, who has been living in Hawaii with her boyfriend, Nico Johannsen, for six months, loses her housekeeping job at an upscale Hawaiian resort. Lux and Nico met in a restaurant in San Diego, California, where she was waiting tables, and she eventually followed him to Hawaii. Nico comes from an affluent family but has rejected both his parents’ financial support and a position at their successful, boutique law firm. When Lux met him, he had recently purchased a boat with the intention of sailing around the Pacific. Still reeling from the recent loss of her mother to cancer, Lux was struggling to find her own sense of direction. Attracted to Nico’s calm, even-tempered personality, Lux happily agreed to join him on his voyage.

Nico works fixing boats at the local marina and takes the occasional charter. Two women freshly out of college have just hired him to bring them to Meroe Island, a remote atoll made infamous by the survivors of a shipwreck who resorted to cannibalism to survive. Unphased that Lux has lost her job, Nico invites her to help him with the charter. Lux is wary of the idea at first, but after meeting the women, Brittany and Amma, she relaxes and decides to accompany them. She feels particularly drawn to Brittany and wonders if she might have found a new friend. 

The journey to Meroe includes a treacherous storm, but the weather eventually clears, and the sailing is smooth. The group is surprised when they pull into Meroe’s small, natural harbor to see another boat already anchored. The boat’s two sailors, Jake Kelly and Eliza, are a couple with whom Lux’s group forms an instant bond. Despite Jake’s opulent wealth, he presents himself as relaxed and down-to-earth, and Eliza is witty and personable. They enjoy a raucous first-night party and wake the next morning excited for the two weeks they’ve planned to spend on the island. Their calm is disturbed, however, by the presence of another boat whose sailor, Robbie, is not as likeable as Jake and Eliza. He’s ill-mannered and uncouth and makes jokes about cannibalism that everyone finds in poor taste. A few days later, when his boat disappears, Lux feels relieved. Still, nagging questions remain about where he might be, and when the group finds that Robbie smashed their radios before leaving, they are furious. 

As the days pass on Meroe, Lux cannot help but notice a burgeoning attraction between Nico and Amma. She and Nico begin to bicker, and she observes personality traits in Nico that she hadn’t seen before. She wonders how much of his laid-back attitude was real and what other qualities might be lurking beneath his calm, placid surface. Robbie had warned them that group dynamics break down in isolated, eerie places like Monroe, and tension develops between Amma and Brittany as well. 

Hawkins includes chapters that flash back to each member of the group in the months leading up to the trip to Monroe, revealing that there is much more to everyone than first meets the eye. Brittany and Amma did not meet in college but in a grief support group. Brittany’s family was killed in a car accident, and Amma claimed to have lost her boyfriend, Sterling. The pair first bonded over their shared histories of loss and decided to take a trip to Europe together, where they met a third woman, Chloe. When Chloe began pickpocketing strangers, Brittany was thrilled, but Amma objected. Chloe’s online sleuthing revealed that Amma’s boyfriend was not dead but in prison—he was the drunk driver who killed Brittany’s family, and Amma had been lying to Brittany for the entirety of their friendship. Brittany vowed to exact revenge, and Chloe was happy to help. It is also revealed that Chloe’s high school boyfriend’s father, a prominent drug trafficker, convinced her mother to carry a shipment of drugs for him. Her mother received a 10-year prison sentence after being caught, and her boyfriend’s father was not punished at all. Chloe is ultimately revealed as the woman now calling herself Eliza, and Jake is the high school boyfriend whose family wreaked so much havoc in her own family’s life. 

After Nico sleeps with Amma, the group breaks down even further. Jake and Lux discover Robbie’s body in the island’s dense, interior jungle. Nico disappears. An explosive argument between Amma and Lux turns violent and results in Amma accidentally elbowing Lux in the nose and both Amma and Lux being plunged into the water. Lux wakes the next morning to find Amma’s lifeless body beside her on the beach. She has no memory of Amma’s death. When Nico’s lifeless body is also found, Lux feels determined to figure out who is committing the murders. A conversation with Brittany and Eliza reveals the various connections between them. Lux learns that Jake killed Robbie and that Brittany killed Nico, but they worked together to cover up the crimes. Brittany and Eliza explain that life is unkind to women who are not born into generational wealth. They have to make their own way in the world. Brittany points out how much they have in common with Lux and offers to let Lux join them. They plan to sail around the world, living off the cash reserves that Jake has on hand from his family’s trafficking business and continuing to make use of Eliza’s pickpocketing skills. 

In a moment of dramatic violence, Eliza accidentally shoots Brittany. She hands Lux the gun and asks her to shoot Jake. Lux initially refuses, fatally shooting Eliza instead. She turns on Jake, mulling over his crimes against Eliza, and shoots him, too. As the novel ends, Lux has left the island. In Bangkok, Thailand, she meets a young woman whose boyfriend wronged her. Lux explains to her that life has dealt them both a difficult hand but that she herself was able to take charge of her destiny, and she knows that this woman can, too. In the novel’s final scene, the woman sneaks into her boyfriend’s hotel room, silently grabs his wallet, and leaves Bangkok with Lux.