River of Eden

by Glenna McReynolds

The River of Eden Story:

RIVER OF EDEN (Standalone)

In the humid port city of Manaus, Brazil, determined ethnobotanist Dr. Annie Parrish—still haunted by the career-shattering “Woolly Monkey Incident” that nearly killed her and left her blacklisted—returns to the Amazon to reclaim her reputation by revisiting the site of her groundbreaking discovery: a rare, legendary orchid called “The Messenger” by indigenous peoples. Barred from official channels and targeted by dangerous forces, Annie reluctantly hires Will Sanchez Travers, a once-brilliant Harvard-trained ethnobotanist now living as a sun-bronzed, bearded jungle rogue—rumored to be a drunkard, shaman, and more—whose own hidden vendetta makes him the only one willing to take her up the perilous Rio Negro in his boat, the Sucuri.

The pair plunges into the untamed rainforest, facing relentless natural perils, shadowy pursuits, and the blurring of scientific fact with ancient Amazonian myth. Annie’s secrets—tied to her past trauma—are darker than Will anticipates, while his motives revolve around destroying Corisco Vargas, a ruthless, corrupt army major and political/criminal power who enslaves indigenous people and outsiders in illegal gold mines, exploits the jungle’s riches, and has a personal grudge against Annie after abusing her during her previous expedition. Vargas and his network of violent enforcers (including local underworld figures like the merchant Fat Eddie in Manaus) relentlessly chase them, turning the journey into a high-stakes game of survival, betrayal, and confrontation.

As mutual distrust erodes into fierce attraction and alliance, their quest for the orchid becomes intertwined with personal redemption and a desperate stand against Vargas’s destructive ambitions. The novel weaves pulse-pounding romantic suspense with adventure, sensual tension, and subtle surreal mysticism in one of the world’s most unforgiving environments..

The Standalone Book:

boookwyrm Review:

River of Eden by Glenna McReynolds (Standalone)

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 (still smoldering in the hoard after all this time)

We—bookwyrm and the Cybernet Book gnomes—cracked this one open expecting a straightforward jungle romp with some heat, and instead got dragged down the Rio Negro like we’d been tossed overboard with nothing but a machete and a bad attitude. The Amazon here isn’t just backdrop. It’s alive, steaming, whispering secrets through every dripping leaf and shadowed bend of the river. McReynolds paints it with such lush, feverish detail—the humid weight of the air, the electric green of the canopy, the way the water mirrors both sky and nightmare—that we felt the sweat on our scales and the itch of insects we’ve never met. Beautiful descriptions. Relentless, gorgeous, almost too much, and exactly right.

Annie Parrish is no fragile flower. She’s a trained ethnobotanist who’s already survived one near-fatal expedition, been blacklisted, stared down death, and come roaring back for redemption. But there’s a stubborn idealism in her. A scientist’s tunnel vision that makes her underestimate just how ugly the human side of the jungle can get. She trusts too quickly, clings too hard to the purity of her discovery, and that selective blindness—almost a quiet naivety born from trauma and obsession—nearly costs her everything. And Will Travers? Sun-bronzed rogue with a Harvard brain and a shaman’s crystals dangling from his neck, all charm and menace and hidden vendettas. Their distrust sparks like dry tinder, then catches into something fierce and inevitable. The romance isn’t gifted. It’s clawed out of the muck, fear, and shared peril. Beautiful descriptions of complex people, layered and flawed and so darn human we couldn’t look away.

The Amazon mysticism, almost like a character of the story, runs the hazy line between indigenous legend and cold science. The jungle itself seeming to watch and wait… but sometimes left us tilting our heads, not entirely sure what thread we were chasing. We didn’t always understand what was going on with all the Amazon mysticism, but we didn’t care. The current was too strong. Corisco Vargas and his enforcers are closing in, Fat Eddie’s shadows lurk in Manaus, the river is rising, and that one impossible flower, the orchid called The Messenger, is out there, pulling everyone deeper. The book doesn’t stop to explain; it just carries you along, relentless, on the hunt.

This is high-heat romantic suspense done right—pulse-pounding, sensual, drenched in atmosphere and danger. A standalone that grips hard and doesn’t let go. If you want romance wrapped in real peril and jungle steam, this one’s worth the dive. We’re still tasting the humidity.