After triumphing with The Lion's Den and The Siren, St. John aims to prove that three's the charm with a story set at a mysterious wellness center called the Mandala, housed at a villa deep in Mexico's jungles. When its charismatic leader dies, he leaves his entire estate to estranged niece Sveta, who confusedly travels to what's billed as a flowering paradise and instead finds a sinister conclave of numbed individuals devoted to dangerous beliefs. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

When Manhattan supermodel Sveta Bentzen, the narrator of this far-fetched but fun romantic adventure-thriller from St. John (The Siren), learns that her late father's brother, self-help guru Paul Bentzen, has died suddenly at Xanadu, his wellness center in the Mexican jungle, she's surprised that he left her--not his wife Kali--his entire mega-million-dollar estate. Collecting, however, will prove more than a little complicated. For starters, the lawyer for the estate, dashing Lucas Baranquilla, is about the last person Sveta's likely to trust since he ghosted her after their hookup years earlier. And then there's the charismatic Kali, who makes it clear once the duo arrive for Paul's funeral at Xanadu that she's determined not to relinquish control of the bulk of the estate. As Sveta wrestles with whether to allow herself to be bought off, and in the process ignore increasing evidence of sinister goings-on--including her uncle's possible murder--she also fights an undeniable attraction to Lucas. St. John effectively ratchets up the suspense and the surprises. Lushly exotic locales and touches of humor add to tasty escapism that should please fans of Nine Perfect Strangers. Agent: Sarah Bedingfield, Levine Greenberg Rostan. (Sept.)

Deep in the Mexican jungle, a New York model wrangles with a cult leader for the estate she's inherited from her uncle. "A stately pleasure-dome" à la Kubla Khan was the inspiration of self-help author/vitamin magnate Paul Bentzen when he created a retreat center called Xanadu on the grounds of an isolated villa built by a drug lord, empty and languishing on the real estate market after a mass killing ended the kingpin's reign. Though she has warm childhood memories of her uncle Paul, Svetlana Bentzen and her widowed single mother became estranged from him for reasons she has never fully understood. Therefore it's quite a surprise when she learns that he's died and left her his entire estate--$180 million, as Chase, her dishwater-dull fiance, learns when he asks Alexa. Why wouldn't the man leave it all to Kali, the common-law wife with whom he ran The Mandala, a spiritual program which requires aspirants to abandon their lives and move to Xanadu? With her engagement to Chase on the rocks, Sveta travels down alone, though luckily she's joined at the last minute by Lucas Baranquilla, a handsome lawyer whose late father worked with her uncle (and whom she'd hooked up with as a teen). At Xanadu, the pair quickly learn that Uncle Paul's death was far from straightforward and that Kali has both some disturbingly potent herbal tea recipes and an alternate version of the will that was signed at the last minute. Sveta, who has her doubts about wealth and the wealthy, might not have put up much of a fuss, but when she finds out that forced dieting and body-shaming are part of the quest for enlightenment, it really rubs her the wrong way. For all the intriguing issues addressed in the book--jungle psychedelics, spiritual faddism, cultural appropriation, and more--it lacks the satiric edge of St. John's debut, The Lion's Den (2020), and the plot is marred by unnecessary complications with hasty resolutions. Missing the je ne sais quoi that makes a silly thriller built on clichés and stereotypes fun. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.