72 Hours

In Jewel’s awkward, unsettling romantic thriller set in Florida’s swampy wilderness, Lara and Noah have 72 hours to escape from the clutches of a killer before his game of hide-and-seek turns into a death sentence. The man who has captured them has been following them for months, and he thinks they’ll be easy marks, incapable of working together to get out of the swamp before he catches them. He’s not entirely wrong; they both took tremendous hits during their breakup three months before, and their mutual trust is shattered. Now it looks like they won’t get time to even begin to clear the air unless they find a way to survive. Jewel’s clumsy plotting and lack of details (neither main character even has a last name) give readers little to enjoy. There’s some suspense, and lots of gore, but there’s no real reason to care. Agent: Kimberly Brower, Rebecca Friedman Literary. (Apr.)