I'm not a fan of reality TV shows like Survivor, but I did enjoy this cheeky romance mystery set on one such couples show: Dawn Tay's Inferno. Co-authors Kara Loo and Jennifer Young have a lot of fun with the off-set goings on in Alice Chen's Reality Check (#1,337) and I did too.
Alice is a no-nonsense math teacher who takes her challenges seriously. When her boyfriend proposes becoming contestants on a new reality show an old college buddy is working on, he persuades Alice to agree when he tells her the jackpot for the winning couple will be one million dollars. Although Alice hasn't shared the information with anyone, her mother's stage 4 cancer treatments are eating up her salary and than some. Winning a million dollars would sure help settle the medical debts.
Her old high school nemesis Daniel Cho just happens to be half of one of the other couples competing. Now Alice has double motivation: to help her mother and beat the pants off Daniel (even if thinking of what's under those pants is making her sweat!) When Alice's fiancé Chase is caught with his pants down with another contestant, it almost gets them thrown off the show, but the show's emcee and producer are determined to build up the show's ratings even more by swapping the couples and continuing on. And Alice thought it couldn't get any worse - now she's paired with Daniel Cho and they've got to make good.
The behind-the-scenes shenanigans lead to sabotage and eventually murder on the set. Can Alice and Daniel stop the killer before more people are hurt? It's not looking good...
Alice and Daniel are strong characters in an interesting, if slightly preposterous setting. Add to that a locked room mystery and you have it all! And isn't that what beach reading is all about? I look forward to reading more from this South Asian writing duo.
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