Review of PERFECT STORM by Paige Shelton

PERFECT STORM (Alaska Wild #6) by Paige Shelton will be released on December 3, 2024, by Minotaur Books.

After a year spent hiding in the Alaskan wilderness while her kidnapper was sought by the police back home in Missouri, Beth Rivers is about to come face-to-face with the man who turned her world upside down. Beth’s kidnapper—and her father’s one time partner in crime—has managed to escape custody and he’s on his way to Alaksa to find Beth. To hopefully evade Travis, Beth and her boyfriend decide to take a camping trip. Meanwhile, back in Benedict, Beth’s parents, the police chief, and a handful of other friends are prepared to take down Travis should he show up in the small town. Beth’s and Tex’s camping trip takes them by the isolated community of Blue Mine. While there, they learn that several of the Blue Mine citizens have met tragic ends. The community is also allegedly being stalked by Bigfoot. Setting aside her concerns for her own safety, Beth and Tex decide to help one of the Blue Mine women transport her husband’s body back to Benedict so that the police chief can determine who murdered him. Things quickly go sideways when the body is lost in a rainstorm. Not only is Beth running from Travis, but she also has Bigfoot on her trail. Instead of retreating into the wilderness, Beth decides to remain in Benedict to await Travis’s inevitable arrival.

PERFECT STORM is a thrilling addition to the Alaska Wild series. The Travis storyline has been building since the first novel, and it finally comes to a head in PERFECT STORM. While PERFECT STORM can be read as a standalone—there is enough backstory to get the read caught up with the past year of Beth’s life—but I would recommend reading the entire series. Having just binge-read the series, the story of Beth’s kidnapping and her new life in Alaska was fresh in my mind. I was looking forward to this final confrontation between Beth and Travis, and I was a little disappointed that it was over so quickly. The focus of the novel bounces back and forth between Travis’s impending arrival in Benedict and the string of recent murders at Blue Mine. The Blue Mine plot takes up a lot of space, but there is ultimately no real conclusion. It serves more as a distraction for the main characters and ruins the carefully laid plan of the group dealing with Travis while Beth and Tex are safely camped out it the backcountry. I’m looking forward to the next novel to see how Beth’s life changes now that she is no longer looking over her shoulder for Travis.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.