What Wild Women Do

July 31, 2023
In Brown’s solid latest (following Recipe for a Perfect Wife), a budding screenwriter leaves Los Angeles with her boyfriend for the Adirondack Mountains, where she encounters the ruins of a 1970s feminist camp. Thirty-year-old Rowan is trying to jump-start her career alongside Seth, who is trying to write the Great American Novel. After their service jobs dry up in L.A. during the pandemic, the couple decides to rent a cabin in the Adirondacks to work on their writing. But Seth is more interested in building their YouTube channel than writing his novel, and after Rowan accidentally posts a tell-all video after a night of drinking that says the channel portrays a glossied version of their lives, the relationship deteriorates. They meet a pair of ornithologists who tell them about Camp Callaway, a cabin retreat established by a wealthy family at the turn of the 20th century, which later became a feminist women’s camp headed by Edith “Eddie” Callaway, who disappeared in 1975. While Seth is preoccupied with social media, Rowan vows to find out the truth behind Eddie’s disappearance, which will change the course of her life. The story is told in dual timelines, and while Brown convincingly depicts Rowan’s arc, the ’70s sections following Eddie take a few chapters to get going and find a rhythm. Though familiar, this will satisfy readers looking for an entertaining mystery.