Raiders of the Lost Heart

 Raiders of the Lost Heart by Jo Segura (2023, 368 pages)

Note: This summary contains spoilers!

I want to start out with saying that I hate writing negative reviews. I know authors work really hard and pull lots of creative muscles. I wanted this to be fun and cute, and parts of it were. But the absurdity unfortunately took away from that.

The gist you need to know if you haven't read it is that two rival (but friend) archaeologist professors, Ford from Yale and Corrie from Stanford, are digging in Mexico for a lost famous warrior and his knife.

These people are SO unprofessional and unrealistic. Now I like campy. But from the very beginning, Ford sends for Corrie to join him on a dig. But, he stays anonymous and she doesn't know where she's going or who she's digging with, with THREE DAYS' notice. What?!? What in the tenure track is this?

This book contains wild things like Ford grabbing a venomous snake right as it goes to bite Corrie; his mom needing life saving treatment which the hospital won't administer unless he pays $30,000 immediately? (just go into medical debt like the rest of us, dude), then Corrie grabs the phone from him and pays it with her credit card; Corrie having some odd supernatural sense about where unknown archaeological sites are; nearly every named character having a crush on her; the dig site having forged papers by a well known smuggler that Ford somehow didn't recognize; Ford being stabbed IN THE STOMACH, left in the MIDDLE OF THE JUNGLE, and somehow surviving. I could go on.

There are also so many little twists that I have whiplash. 

I did like some of the romance bits (enemies to lovers, pretending to kiss so they don't look suspicious, other tropes I unapologetically enjoy, etc.), and the setting was fun. I like the opposite personalities of the characters. I would love to read this author's future books perhaps if the writing matures a little.

★★☆☆☆