What happens when your biggest regret shows up at your campfire in the middle of the Utah desert?
I was making pancakes for the kids on a Saturday morning - Carlos had taken the early shift for once, bless him - and I had my earbuds in because I'd been too wired after a rough Friday night in the trauma bay to sleep properly. Something light, I told myself. Something that doesn't involve anyone coding on a table. Christina Lauren's Something Wilder was sitting in my queue, and honestly? It was exactly the kind of distraction my brain needed. Not because it's forgettable. Because it's fun in a way that sneaks up on you while you're flipping blueberry pancakes and pretending you're fine.
Treasure Maps, Daddy Issues, and the Ex You Never Got Over
Lily Wilder runs fake treasure hunts through the red rock canyons of Utah using her deadbeat treasure-hunter father's hand-drawn maps. That premise alone had me hooked - there's something deeply satisfying about a woman who takes the scraps her absent father left behind and turns them into a hustle. She's resourceful. She's practical. She reminds me of every eldest daughter I've ever known (hi, it's me, the eldest of five who turned her mom's disappointment into a career). And then Leo Grady - the one who got away, or more accurately, the one she pushed away - walks into her tour group with his buddies, and the tension is immediate.
What I appreciated is that Christina Lauren doesn't make the reunion cute. It's awkward and a little hostile and Lily is NOT having it. The line-in-the-sand energy felt real. I've seen patients' exes show up in the ER at 2 AM and the temperature in the room drops exactly like that. You can feel it through the narration.
The adventure plot - where the fake treasure hunt starts looking suspiciously real - is where the book really picks up momentum. The Canyonlands setting is vivid enough that I could picture the slot canyons and the isolation. When things go wrong out there (and they go WRONG), the stakes feel genuine. Not medical-thriller stakes, but "we might actually die in this canyon" stakes, which is a nice change of pace from my usual "THAT'S NOT HOW DEFIBRILLATORS WORK" audiobook experience. Though if you want a thriller that actually gets the tension right without making me yell at my dashboard, I Am Pilgrim is one of the rare ones that earns its stakes honestly.
The Third-Person Thing (Let's Talk About It)
Okay, so here's the thing that'll either bother you or won't. The book is written in third-person dual POV, and the audiobook splits narration between Patti Murin (Lily's sections) and Jon Root (Leo's sections). Both are solid performers - Murin brings this dry, guarded quality to Lily that fits perfectly, and Root gives Leo enough warmth that you understand why Lily fell for him in the first place.
But third-person narration in audio is... a different animal. When Murin is narrating and says "she felt" instead of "I felt," there's a tiny layer of distance that never fully dissolves. It's not the narrators' fault - they're working with what the text gives them. Root handles it better, actually. His Leo sections feel more inhabited somehow, like he found a way to close that gap between narrator and character. Murin is technically excellent but I caught myself drifting during a couple of her slower passages in a way I didn't with his.
Christina Lauren also narrates briefly - author narration credits are listed but their contribution seems minimal. No sound effects, no music, just clean audio and two capable voice actors trading chapters.
When the Romance Actually Earns It
I'm picky about second-chance romance because so often the "why did they break up" reason is flimsy or manufactured. Here? The reasons Lily and Leo fell apart are tangled up in her father's legacy, in trust issues that actually make sense given who these people are. When they start circling back toward each other - under stars, in genuine danger, with the treasure hunt forcing them to cooperate - it doesn't feel like a plot device pushing them together. It feels like two stubborn people running out of excuses.
Carlos asked why I was crying in the car. I blamed allergies. (It was the ranch. If you know, you know.)
The humor lands too. Christina Lauren's banter game is strong, and the group dynamics with Leo's friends add levity without becoming sitcom-ish. There's a scene where the group realizes just how lost they are that had me laughing out loud over the griddle.
Who Gets This Prescription
If you want a romance that's also genuinely an adventure story - not just two hot people in proximity but actual plot momentum with real outdoor peril - this is your book. Perfect for road trips, especially through the Southwest. My mom would love this (she still thinks I should've been a doctor) but she'd also spend the whole time asking me to explain the treasure-hunting parts.
If third-person audio narration bugs you, maybe read the print version instead. And if you need high heat levels, this is more slow burn than bonfire - the emotional payoff is bigger than the physical one.
Night shift approved. Light enough to keep you company, substantial enough to remember the next morning.
