Scavengers

by Kathleen Boland

A cautious daughter and her eccentric, estranged mother venture west in search of buried treasure—and a way back to each other—before they run out of patience, money, and options.

After being fired for taking an uncharacteristic risk at her commodities trading job, Bea Macon sublets her New York apartment and books a one-way ticket to stay with her mother, Christy, a free spirit who's been living in Salt Lake City on Bea's dime.

Usually the responsible one, Bea isn't about to admit exactly why she's suddenly decided to visit, but she isn’t the only one keeping secrets: Christy has a boyfriend. She has a map. She has a username on a forum devoted to unearthing $1 million in buried treasure that an antiquities dealer claims to have hidden somewhere in the western U.S...?

Bea is convinced this is just another one of her mother’s wild larks, an elaborate way to refuse, as she has for Bea’s entire life, to finally grow up. But Christy believes she’s on to something—and she’s arranged a rendezvous in a rural town called Mercy with the guy she’s been obsessively trading theories with online to prove it. Out in the desert that one woman views as a promised land, the other a wasteland, they find themselves barreling toward a more high-stakes, transformative escapade than either of them could have imagined.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Mystery, Audiobook, Family, Literary Fiction, Book Club

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 13, 2026

About the author

Kathleen Boland is the author of the novel Scavengers. Her fiction has appeared in Tin House, Conjunctions, and Gulf Coast, among other places, and she has received support from the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Vermont Studio Center. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family.

Reviews

[Dona's Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐⭐.5

Pre-Read Notes:

Love this publishing house, so it was an easy choice. Besides that, I'm a sucker for a good topographical map, so this cover undid me.

"She has spent the majority of her life without a cell phone, never needing one until ten or so years ago, and even then, she never thought she needed it. But now, seeing her daughter’s belongings without her daughter, she needs it, desperately." p158

Final Review

(thoughts & recs) Some 300 page books, I can read in an afternoon or maybe over two of them. And some 300 page books feel like they take *forever* usually as a matter of form or style. This is one of the latter.

For me, it's an issue of irregular pacing and a thin plot. Together with clarity issues, these problems really affected my enjoyment. For most of the book I needed higher stakes, and then once at least emotional stakes were worth investing in, the book was three quarters of the way done, and I was wondering how the writer had the space to fit in everything the story needed.

Also-- and this is such a weird quibble-- Boland doesn't seem comfortable here with her pronoun use, particularly in paragraphs in which the daughter (Bea) describes thoughts and beliefs belonging to the mom (Christy). I found it both horribly confusing and sometimes a real challenge to figure out who is doing what with the verb in any given sentence.

Don't expect resolution for any aspects of the story here, because it doesn't come. I've never read a book that used so many words to say "This is all you get."

I think this book will be a win for some readers, since most of my complaints are a matter of style. I recommend it to fans of

My Favorite Things:

✔️ "Look, people make shit up all the time. We’re all a bunch of filthy liars. White lies, big lies, anonymous sources, self-checkout, dating profiles, cover letters, orgasms, calories, taxes. We can lie about everything and we do." p9 Don't miss the preface. These are the opening sentences. This section works well as a work-in to a very unique style. "People make shit up all the time, but sooner or later, the storm comes. It always does." p15

✔️ "Bea considered what it would mean to tell Christy about her job, her finances. Their finances. Her mother might wave her off, tell her they’d be burritos in the meantime, it was no big deal. But it was. It was her career. It was her life. Their life. And her mother seemed happy. A bit delusional, sure , but aren’t all happy people deluded?" p47 A lot of casual ableism in this book, but that's not that surprising, given the character details.

✔️ Boland is quite gifted with the long metaphor, like the one you'll find on nuclear fallout on the first 5 pages of Section 2. They aren't always clearly anchored to the story, so their subtext isn't always immediately clear.

Notes Content: financial ruin, fraud, credit cards, bankruptcy, stalking, mother-daughter conflict, gender bias, being lost, missing loved one, political rally, guns,

Thank you to Kathleen Boland, Viking, and NetGalley for an accessible digital arc of SCAVENGERS. All views are mine.

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

A gently funny late-coming-of-age novel in which Bea, a head-down-and-work-hard woman who, since she was a kid, has been forced to be the responsible one in her skewed mother-daughter relationship. Mom is a hippy-dippy ditz who gets by because Bea pays her rent. But Bea loses her job on a commodities trading desk when she uncharacteristically takes a risk, so she (again uncharacteristically) sublets her New York apartment and heads to the Idaho desert to join her mother. There, mom (totally in character), has hooked up with a very sketchy guy she met online on a forum for a group of treasure hunters looking for a chest full of loot buried by an eccentric man who left a poem full of clues to the location. Bea is dragged into the hunt with mom, as the two bond successfully for the first time in years and Bea starts to see light at the end of the tunnel of her falling-apart life.

Interestingly, the author received part of the inspiration for the book from a fairly recent real-life treasure hunt spurred by a man burying a cache of valuables and inspiring people to hunt for it with clues left in a poem. (Look it up: Forrest Fenn.)

[SusanTalksBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

*** 5/23/25 *** Thank you, NetGalley and Viking, for the opportunity to preview this January 2026 novel by Kathleen Boland.

After reading Scavengers, I imagine author Kathleen Boland has spent vacations in the Utah hills, hiking and staying in a cabin or small town, or possibly she studied anthropologic history in college, as the descriptions of the *places* were lengthy and vivid. There is a lot of historic detail about how the locations were settled, and while this may be compelling narratives for some, they were the least interesting parts of the book for me.

The main character of Scavengers is Bea, a young single 30-something woman working in a NYC finance-bro environment, but without the benefit of educated or even really involved parents from which to drive her ambition and life goals past the point of being thrilled to have enough money to live independently and even support her mother, Christie, as well as her grandmother for a while. Bea is a person hoping to find her people and figure out what her relationship with her mother should be and what her life should be.

The story has a "before" arc based in NYC where Bea struggles to connect to others, taking scraps from a booty-call man who she thinks of as a boyfriend despite all contrary evidence. Bea finds herself socializing with a group far beyond her social comfort zone, and she misreads cues professionally and personally, finding herself alone and adrift.

Circumstances lead to the "after" arc in which Bea joins her mother in Utah to visit, and then to join her in what she sees as a hair-brained scheme to find a million dollar buried treasure with the only clue being a poorly written poem with a message board full of fanatics trying to decipher it.

I came to this book for the personal journey aspect of Bea, as well as some 'adventure' reading as they sought the treasure. I was frustrated in the actual reading by the mostly super naive and highly worrisome behavior of Bea and her mother, drinking and partying with strangers - some very creepy ones - routinely. There is a lot of drinking in this book. I couldn't understand Bea's inability to speak even a little directly to her mother, or her ongoing support of her mother when she herself was running out of money.

I expected (hoped for) Bea's weather expertise to combine with Christie's map and notes on the treasure to take the book in a very different direction that had them both use their core skills to work together to accomplish something. But the side stories of Christie's weird boyfriend and the town hall meeting and the history of the locations seemed to dilute the core themes for me. The reader is given a resolution for Bea and Christie, but it was a little subtle for me versus expectations. I wanted a stronger outcome for Bea to allow her to rise victorious professionally, personally, and socially, and I got a little of that, but hoped for more. Despite these thoughts, I did empathize with Bea and felt her character was well written - I could feel her struggle quite viscerally.

I believe this is the author's first book, so kudos for that, and I give it 3.5* rounded up, and would read her next book to see how she evolves as an author.

[Jenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to sample this debut novel that seems to have had a largely positive reception thus far, and indeed many elements of this novel seem likely to appeal to some readers; however, this one wasn’t quite for me.


The novel starts out as a sort of mother/daughter “Odd Couple” story in which disgraced Wall Street worker daughter Bea (short for Beautiful) and her flaky, crystal, fake plant, and patchouli-loving, serial-dating mom Christy reunite in Utah amidst the wreck of past, recent, and current individual and joint turmoil. They embark together on a madcap escapist road trip into an underworld of other eccentric outsider seeker types, spurred by Christy’s obsession with a treasure hunting online forum and the latest would-be paramour she’s met through it.


That’s the plot on the surface, at least, but don’t expect a cohesive, resolved, redemptive journey sort of tale: this is no Anywhere But Here or Thelma and Louise, for instance. Instead, this book sort of goes off the rails in a skeptical, cynical, chaotic, rather Po-Mo manner and thus resembles Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 more than anything else I could think of: a compliment, by the way, as that’s a novel I really like, although I did not emotionally connect with or enjoy this one so much.


As suggested, this story is not linear, but rather features multiple changing viewpoints and timelines, a rotating cast of misfit and often suspicious side characters, a style I can best describe as staccato, and a disjointed narrative that sort of progressively unravels to the point where it feels like quite a different book in the end, or at least a book where the pages got shuffled up. The book also spends quite a lengthy bit of time up front on the initial setup and backstory, meaning that there was only a brief period of time in the middle where I felt like I was somewhat grounded and invested in what was going on before the cheese slipped off the crackers once more.


I’m not entirely sure if this novel was meant to be a dark comedy: I got the dark part plus a little bit of ominous and depressing; I did not personally find humor in it. I found the characters for the most part pretty off-putting, unfortunately including Bea and Christy, whom I often wanted to shake and implore to get their freaking act together. Christy is sort of a stereotype of a benignly frivolous scatterbrain, has no ability to read a room and zero intuition about people, possible dependent personality issues, and has never paid a bill in her life. Bea acts like a giant teenager who is always smirking (a lot of smirking in this book generally) and doing things like trying to eat a glob of Skittles without chewing, letting fries fall out of her mouth as she is chewing, and impetuously cutting off her hair to shock her mother. Given that Bea is also supposed to be a highly educated and analytically minded math wizard with a responsible and successful NYC life and career to this very point, I had trouble putting all these messy pieces together and could never quite get a clear mental picture of Bea or understand her as a fully realized character, which made it very difficult to bond with or root for her.


I feel guilty about not liking the book more — perhaps my expectations were off based on the description — but it’s definitely a creative and ambitious effort for a first novel, and what didn’t work so well for me seems to have landed more comfortably with others.


My sincere thanks to NetGalley and Viking Penguin for providing an eARC in exchange for my honest review. Scavengers is scheduled for publication on January 13, 2026.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this novel. It tells the story of Bea, a young woman recently fired from her NYC position in the commodities market, and her visit with her largely absentee, free-spirit mother (Christy), who has been living in a Utah rental home thanks to funding from Bea. Bea is broke and her mothers on the edge of being evicted from her home. But her ever-optimistic mother has a plan. She has been obsessively frequenting a chat room for people hunting for a mysterious buried treasure. The clues to find the treasure are embedded in an odd poem. Christy has spent months (years?) making an odd map of where she thinks the treasure is. She has been working in Tandem with a mystery man from the forum ("Bob") and they have planned a long weekend together in a small Utah tow=n to zero in on the treasure. Bea's arrival jostles those plans, as she accompanies her mother on the weekend getaway. What ensures is mesmerizing. The characters in the novel are fascinating, and the novel had me staying up late at night reading well beyond my bedtime. The backdrom of the Utah desert was also wonderfully rendered--so much so that the desert was almost a character in the novel. Highly recommended!

[Angie Miale · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoughtful, darkly funny road trip novel about an analyst and her flighty mother at a crossroads. Scavengers follows Bea, freshly let go from her high-powered speculation job in Manhattan. She decides to visit her mother Christy in Salt Lake City. Christy, once a Connecticut native, had relocated to Utah for better cost of living and also to look for a hidden treasure with a ragtag group of tinfoil hat types. Christy ignores collections notices and is financially dependent on Bea- she isn't disabled either physically or mentally- really for no reason except that Bea enables her flakiness and completely supports her. When Christy decides to go meet her internet boyfriend Bob with a treasure map she made, Bea has no choice but to go along for the ride.

For fans of Kevin Wilson and Laurie Frankel, this quirky litfic was a joy to read. While it was easy to be irritated with the codependency of Bea, the irresponsible nature of Christy, over time they both have character arcs that allow the reader to eventually feel empathy for them individually and in a relationship. The story starts with a prologue of an earlier Bea/Christy road trip (Bea was a child) in which they are surprised in central Iowa with a major weather event, an inland hurricane called a Derecho. It is highly symbolic and lightly feminist, interweaving the stories we tell ourselves and how we find responsibility for the relationships we share. How the road is symbolic for the journey we are on, how we find personal success and what we put our faith in. Bea puts her faith in numbers and Christy puts her faith in the current moment. Both of them are let down and reach for each other when their foundations are shaken.

Well written and intriguing, this is kind of a quiet novel that not enough people have read. I hope that will change as this powerful debut finds its audience.

[Quill (thecriticalreader) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars
Engrossing and singular.

If you gave me one-thousand years to come up with as many literary fiction plots as possible, I don’t think I would ever come close to the plot of Scavengers by Kathleen Boland. It’s not particularly outlandish, but it is unlike anything I’ve read before. It follows a woman named Bea (short for “Beautiful”) who loses her commodities trading job in New York City. She decides to visit her unemployed mother, who lives on Bea’s dime in Salt Lake City. Their already contentious relationship faces a new test as Christy decides to take off for Mercy, Utah with a strange man named Bob in pursuit of buried treasure.

Scavengers contains some of the most infuriating-yet-lovable characters I’ve ever encountered. Boland has a gift for creating messy characters with an uncomfortable level of realism. Their reckless irresponsibility makes it seem like disaster is just around the corner, but Boland never lets narrative foreshadowing make the plot predictable. I never knew what was going to happen next, and this improbable story had me completely engrossed until the end. I strongly recommend Scavengers—the less you know going in the better.

Thank you to NetGalley and Viking Penguin for providing me with an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Daria | dariasbooked · Rating 3 out of 5]

maybe it’s about the treasure along the way

[Carina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't have any strong feelings about this book, it was just...okay. It was about Bea, an analyst of some sort who recently lost her job after taking a risk with weather predictions, and her mother Christie, who Bea financially supports.

I had a very difficult time rooting for either woman, let alone their relationship. Christie was fully financially dependent on Bea and continuously made terrible choices that Bea had to deal with the consequences of (for example, pouring essential oils into her radiator in order to make it smell better). Bea let her mother do all these *unique* things and didn't stand up for herself at all or ask her mother to take any responsibility or initiative.

Once we got to the treasure hunt part, I thought the story would pick up. The Utah setting was well-done, I enjoyed picturing the landscape and the nature aspect of the treasure hunt. But, I feel like we spent more time trying to find Christie or watching the women party than actually treasure hunting. I could excuse this if the story developed the Bea/Christie relationship more, but wasn't a huge part, so I expected more from the treasure hunt plot line. Also stranger danger?? Why are these women so trusting of random men from the internet or from a bar.

I didn't mind the ending of this book, I thought it worked and wrapped it up pretty solidly, while leaving some space for a follow-up book. It wasn't a shocking ending, but it was fine.

For a debut novel, this was a solid start as the premise was interesting and the writing was good. With a little more development it could have easily been a 4 or 5-star read.

Thank you to NetGalley + Viking Penguin for the ARC

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a story!! Scavengers is a great read - a truly unique story that keeps you on your toes and wondering what will happen next all the way until the end. The motley crew of characters you meet along the way are equal parts endearing and a little nuts. The setting and the way it comes alive is spectacular - made me nostalgic for past camping trips in Utah. Boland's writing is smart, quick, funny and thoughtful. This is a seriously impressive debut novel and one I'll be thinking about for a while!

[Sara Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this fast paced comedy.

Bea loses her prestigious job in New York. She is forced to take a break and visit her estranged mom. Her mom Christy has a big heart but she is the opposite of Bea. While Bea is responsible and analytical her mom is a free flowing crystal loving hippy. Christy recently moved to Utah for an affordable life and also because there is rumored lost treasure buried there.

I thought this road trip comedy was really well written. The characters were so well written. I loved that the author gave back story to their lives. I was enthralled in this heart warming story about figuring out your life.

[Kelsey Ellis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a really time getting into this one. However, that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be your cup of tea!

This is a perfect book for anyone that loves a toxic mother and daughter relationship that commits to find lost treasure in the deserts of the West. I admit that I was intriqued that the setting of this book was Salt Lake City (former stomping grounds), but overall I felt the story disinteresting.

(I AM SORRY KATHLEEN IT IS A ME ISSUE NOT YOU YOU ARE A WONDERFUL WRITER!!!!). This is where I hate reviewing sometimes because just because I didn't like a book doesn't mean that I don't think you shouldn't read it. ya know?

So give it a whirl for that adventurous spirit that is in you and if you like mother/daughter dynamics. The sarcastic humor really had me though and maybe I will pick this one up as an audiobook in the future.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Viking books for my ARC.

Published 1/13/2026

[Chantae · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. This was really hard to follow! It would switch who it was speaking about without explanation, and it would take time to figure out who it was talking about, and then I would be confused what was going on. And the whole treasure hunting aspect of it wasn’t really discussed a whole lot. And … the murder?! Just ignoring that part happened I guess 😂

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scavengers by Kathleen Boland is a novel about a mother and daughter who take a trip into the desert of Utah. It’s less that they set out to take a trip together in order to find a way back to themselves and each other and more that circumstances and their inability or unwillingness to communicate leads them along a path that neither seem willing to protest. And maybe there’s treasure?

Although the possibility of a treasure hunt looms large throughout the novel, I would say that it is more driven by character development than this particular plot device, which is most useful in transplanting Bea (daughter) and Christy (mother) into unfamiliar terrain. I love a good character-focused story, but this one was not the most enjoyable for me. Perhaps this is because there is a lot of time spent on backstory instead of moving the plot forward, especially in the first 15-20% of the book, or maybe this is because both characters are so frustrating and desperate at times that they just weren’t all that fun to hang out with for me. Or it could simply be that I came into the book with incorrect expectations about a mother-daughter road trip/treasure hunt, which I don’t think it is. But if you’re looking for an exploration of a mother-daughter relationship with well-developed and interesting character arcs, this book might be for you.

Another feature of this novel that caught me off guard was the frequent shift in perspective. While it predictably shifts between Bea and Christy, which enriches the mother-daughter arc of the book, it also throws in other perspectives, such as a dog, the town itself, or the sweeping omniscience of history, which occasionally threw me off balance. But other than these perspective shifts, it was an easy read, and despite not being fully enchanted with it, I didn’t have a problem finishing it.

Big thanks to NetGalley and Viking Penguin for my ARC of this novel!

[Elyse Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Viking Penguin for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own! 🤠

This book has everything a girl could want:
- Someone leaving their job and heading into the unknown
- Characters with questionable decision-making skills
- A treasure hunt with a cult-like following
- General Utah beauty and weirdness

Bea has just been fired from her high-stakes job in NYC after making a huge mistake. Burned out after being overlooked for promotions (and by the man she’s interested in), she heads west to visit her eccentric mother, Christy, in Utah. Christy’s favorite hobby is obsessively following a forum dedicated to finding a mysterious treasure that once belonged to the “Poet.” When Bea arrives, she keeps her job loss a secret, not wanting to burden her mother (since she’s paying Christy’s rent). But when she finds out Christy is planning to meet a fellow treasure hunter in a small town to do some research, Bea decides to tag along.

The author’s writing is vivid, bringing each scene to life in a way that feels immersive but never drags. I especially appreciated how well-rounded the characters were, how they were introduced, and how bits of their backstories and motivations were revealed at just the right moments. The story balances strong character development with an engaging plot, and I found myself eagerly trying to piece things together. It made me feel like I was scrolling the forum myself, trying to figure out who I could trust and where the treasure might be.

This was a five-star read for me, and I’m excited for its official release. I highly recommend it to readers who enjoy light mysteries, a bit of adventure, humor, eccentric characters, and the American West. 🤠🌄🐴

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this contemporary, adult fiction novel. The plot of "Scavengers" by Kathleen Boland is unique, interesting, and entertaining. The well-developed, and sometimes completely infuriating, characters are so realistic that they come alive from the pages.; their often irresponsible and sometimes erratic actions make it impossible to predict what will happen next, keeping the reader engaged and turning the pages. Part coming-of-age story, part family drama. and part adventure tale (it is about a treasure hunt, after all), this book is a fun read that will also touch a reader's heart. You can't help but want everything to turn out okay in the end for both Christy and Bea.

What a great book to start off a new year of reading! Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this fabulous book.

[Estee · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

This is a quirky book about an adult daughter and her mother that find themselves on a little adventure and get to know each other. It also involves treasure seeking and hot springs.

It isn’t your typical book, but I liked that it was different.

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Utah and I love this book. I love how Boland wrote Christy and I love the quirky observations. Beautiful cover, beautiful writing!

[Lyon.Brit.andthebookshelf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book Report: The Scavengers by Kathleen Boland

In this wildly charming debut Bea…normally the responsible one finds herself jobless…restless and headed to Salt Lake City to crash with her eccentric secret keeping mother Christy. What’s supposed to be a low key reset turns into a full blown treasure hunt when Bea discovers Christy has a map…a mystery man and a deep obsession with an online forum chasing down $1 million supposedly buried somewhere in the western desert🗺️💰Before they know it…the two are road tripping toward a tiny town called Mercy…unraveling clues meeting delightfully odd characters and confronting the messy tender history between them.

It’s equal parts adventure…mystery and heartfelt mother daughter chaos. With a sweltering Utah backdrop that feels absolutely cinematic🌵🚙✨I cannot wait for this debut to hit shelves because I want to talk about it with EVERYONE. If you were entranced by the Netflix series Gold and Greed (I was fully hooked 🙋‍♀️)this has that same thrill but with Carl Hiaasen-esque shenanigans… just make it Utah. And yes… a shout-out to Tacoma 🙌🏻

Thank you Viking for the advanced ecopy!

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Lyon.brit.A...

[Destiny || readingisyourdestiny · Rating 5 out of 5]

So unique and unexpected. This is why I love literary fiction, you never know where peoples' journeys will take them and these journeys took me to some wild and unexpected places. I loved the mother/daughter dynamics so much!

4.5 stars rounded up because it's a debut that didn't feel like one at all 🙌

[Amanda W · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

In Scavengers, the relationship between a mother and daughter plays out over a backdrop of Utah wilderness, small towns, creepy men, futility, hope, and realization. Bea, the daughter, craves normalcy: a successful job, a nice apartment, a boyfriend, good friends, the finer things in life, but she’s never quite able to attain it. After a setback, she goes to visit her mother, Christy, who lives in Salt Lake City. Christy is flighty and reckless, and we see from flashbacks that these behaviors manifest because of her deep need to be loved along with her inability to properly love anyone else. Christy has planned a weekend with a man she’s only known online, and Bea decides to join her. While they interact with the inhabitants of a small town called Mercy, the reader gets background information about both characters, as well as insight into how they view their relationship.

The book is an easy, quick read, but is ultimately frustrating. Both Christy and Bea make terrible decisions throughout the book and absolutely refuse to demand any answers from anyone, including each other and themselves. They’re near constantly inebriated around strange men who act super creepy. They never speak up for themselves in situations, they never ask the questions of others that they should, and they never talk about how the actions of the other have affected them. Bea obsesses over her so called ‘friends,’ who obviously did not care one way or another about her, but never really sees the ‘perfect’ vagueness of their social media as anything more than jealousy-inducing. Her need to take care of her mother seems to stem from the desire to do what her mother never did (take care of her), but I feel there’s only so many times a daughter would want to do that, especially with a mother that constantly incommunicado.

Boland has created an interesting, quirky little world and interesting, quirky characters, and the undercurrent of sadness in both Bea and Christy connects to the title: just people looking for crumbs of love, of attention, of hope. I just wish there was a little more to the growth of Bea and Christy, as well as more about the Conversation!

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scavengers by Kathleen Boland is so clever and beautifully written, and I can't stop thinking about it. The layered mother-daughter dynamics add depth without ever feeling heavy-handed, and Boland’s voice is sharp, fresh, and totally original. It’s the kind of novel you want to talk about immediately after finishing. Highly recommend for readers who love smart, emotionally rich storytelling. 4.5 stars

[Ashli Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

A million-dollar treasure. A mother with a map. A daughter with nothing left to lose. This mother-daughter treasure hunt is everything—funny, raw, and unexpectedly healing. Scavengers took me on a wild ride through the desert and straight into my heart. Five stars for this unforgettable journey.

[Sarah Wissinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Literary fiction can be pretty hit or miss for me, but I did enjoy this book, even though I'm not sure if I can explain why. None of the characters are particularly likable, but I was also still charmed by and rooting for them? The plot was kind of strange and outrageous, but fun at the same time? After getting fired from her job, Bea heads to Salt Lake City to see her mom, Christy, and they end up traveling to the desert in search for the hidden treasure that her mom discusses with strangers on a message board called the Conversation. Mild chaos ensues. Ultimately I do think this is a story about the relationship between Bea and Christy and how it changes over the course of their time together on this adventure - things are tense, but there is hope that they will be alright in the end. I don't think this book will be for everyone, but it's definitely worth a shot if you ask me. Thank you to Viking Penguin and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy!

[Paige- TheBookandtheBoston · Rating 5 out of 5]

“A cautious daughter and her eccentric, estranged mother” caught my eye of this right away. Plus, a treasure hunt in the western US desert? My interest was piqued, and I started this one as soon as I got my hands on it. I am so glad I read it, too. It was just the perfect quirky, sweet, and humorous book I needed.

This book is definitely more of a “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey” type of book. And on this journey, we get to learn about so many characters, too. While I loved the FMC Bea’s character arc, I also loved getting to know so many of the others in this novel. The author does such a great job bringing these complex people to life, each with their own flaws yet also redeeming qualities. Somehow the desert itself is also brought to life, and with everything together, this was a great debut and an author to look out for!

𝑾𝒉𝒐 𝑰'𝒅 𝑹𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐:
Fans of literary fiction, complex familial relationships (especially mother-daughter), and desert settings!

𝑨 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆 𝒐𝒏 𝒏𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏:
When I saw Helen Laser was narrating, I knew I had to pick it up. Long chapters on audio can be difficult because you really don’t want to lose your spot. But her narration was so great that I was easily willing to risk it 😅

4.5/5 rounded up

[Pam O · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I thought this was going to be a literary fiction work given the description and the cover. However I really didn't like this book at all. Bea is one of our main characters. She gets fired from her analyst job, and decides to go see her mother in Salt Lake City. Her mother, Christy, really isn't responsible and kind of gives in to flights of fancy. She is interested in a treasure hunt based on a poem, and there is an online forum that talks about where the treasure might be. Christy has been talking to Bob on the forum and they meet up trying to find the treasure. Bea goes with them.

The characters are kind of despicable people. I found myself not giving a crud about what might happen to them. The lack of chapters, inconsistent pacing, unclear narrative voice, and plot also made this a challenge to get through.

My favorite character was Tag, and I wish there was more from his POV because that was interesting. My favorite part was the ending, not only because it was over but because it seemed like maybe the characters actually learned something.

Not mad I read this but also just a weird book where a lot of nothing happens.

[Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in one day because I couldn’t put it down. The characters were so rich, the prose was beautiful/funny/engaging. I loved seeing Utah and the desert this way and was amazed how much the characters could grow and evolve over the course of a few days. I have already bought the book for multiple people and my book club is going to read it for next month!

[Christine Tuttell · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF— Got through 60% of this book and finally gave up I really wanted to like it and tried to give it a chance but the plot was all over the place and lots of details about supporting characters that were not relevant to the story.

[Rebecca]

thank you to Viking Penguin & NetGalley for access to this ARC

[Mary Helen Douglas]

DNF at 54% 💤😴😴😴😴🪦