Book Review: The Lust Crusade

I’ve really enjoyed Jo Segura’s first two books in her Raiders of the Lost Heart series and I read the third book (and I think last?) in the series last week – The Lust Crusade. This was such a fun read!

The novel follows Daniela Guiterrez and Theo Galanis. Daniela is a librarian in Michigan and after putting her life on pause for the past ten or so years to help take care of her parents, she’s finally doing something for herself – going on vacation in Greece. But her trip to Greece serves two purposes. She’s not only there for a vacation, but also for some closure. Her brother’s best friend, and her long time crush, Theo is an archaelogist and Greek American. A year ago he went to Greece for an archaeological dig and disappeared. He’s been assumed dead and Dani wants to go to Greece in his honor. But when Dani is on a tour one day, she sees some suspicious activity leading her to find Theo alive and being held hostage!

Now Dani is involved and taken as well. The two have to pretend to be engaged to protect each other. They have a week to find what their captor wants – the Eye of the Minotaur – based on mythology and any clues they can find on the Minoan mystery, if they want to ever go home again.

Will they be able to find the Eye of the Minotaur or is it just a myth? Will pretending to be engaged lead to anything real since they both have secret crushes on each other?

This was a really fun read and I loved Dani and Theo together. I love their history together and the romcom-ness of it all. The miscommunication trope is in this novel, which I don’t love, but it served its purpose here so I guess that’s alright. I wish there was more of a connection between this novel and the previous two. There was mention of Ford from Raiders of the Lost Heart and there’s a common bad guy amongst the books, but I wish there was more! But overall, I really enjoyed the book.

Read this if you want an adventure romcom with the fake dating trope.

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