I wanted to share a new review with you for the book Swamped! written by Ken Wells (Author), Hillary Wells (Author). I received a copy of the book in exchange for this review. Inside this post is my affiliate links. If you click on the links and make a purchase I will make a small percentage off the links you choose.
You will find Swamped! is a fast-paced, heart-stopping, and romantic tale about two young adults fighting to survive in Louisiana’s massive and environmentally rich Great Atchafalaya Swamp. I choose this book for David to reach with Charlie because it touches on Cajun cuisine which is David’s favorite.
The landscape I thought Charlie would enjoy and the French phrases Charlie can practice in his Homeschool Language Arts Class. A lot of people might call Swamped! a YA novel, although I believe its more for adults. One thing is for sure you will find Swamped isa page turner for anyone who chooses to read this book which is full of adventure and excitement as Jack does his job for a high-end Swamp tour company.
About:
Having snagged a job for a high-end swamp tour company, Jack Cane Landry-Louisiana homeboy and self-professed swamp Rat-wants to ditch school and guide fulltime. Poised, attractive, and well-traveled, Olivia FitzGerald loves her private New York City prep school and is Harvard bound. When Olivia and her philanthropist father jet in for a tour Jack will help guide, these wildly different teens are flung together in dire circumstances.
The plane carrying the party to their remote campsite crashes, and Jack and Olivia are the only apparent survivors. Jack soon learns his swamp savvy may not be enough to assure their rescue, but can this rich city girl rise to a challenge where the stakes are life and death? As the teens face down lethal reptiles, a prowling swamp cat, a gun-toting ne’er-do-well, and weather intent on killing them, Swamped! wraps nonstop adventure into an unlikely love story.
About the Author: Ken Wells
Ken Wells, novelist and journalist, grew up second of six sons on the banks of Bayou Black deep in South Louisiana’s Cajun Country. His father was a part-time Alligator hunter and Snake collector and his mother a Gumbo chef extraordinaire. Wells began his journalism career covering car wrecks and Gator sightings for the weekly Houma, La., Courier newspaper.
He has gone on to an illustrious career: a Pulitzer Prize finalist for the Miami Herald; editor of two Pulitzer-Prize-winning projects for Page One of The Wall Street Journal where, over a 24-year period, he also roamed the globe covering the first Persian Gulf War, South Africa’s transition to a multiracial democracy and many other stories. He has since worked as a senior editor for Conde Nast Portfolio magazine and spent six years at Bloomberg News/Businessweek as both a senior writer and editor before leaving in 2015 to pursue book writing full-time.
During his spare time, Wells devoted himself to writing novels. He is the author of six well-received books of the Cajun bayous: “Meely LaBauve” (a 2000 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers book); Junior’s Leg (2001); Logan’s Storm (2002); and Crawfish Mountain (2007). Tom Wolfe said of Crawfish Mountain, “Ken Wells is the Cajun Carl Hiaasen.” In 2010, Knopf Young Adult published his YA novel, Rascal, a Dog and His Boy. His sixth novel, “Swamped!” is a fast-paced YA survival story set in Louisiana’s exotic and forbidding Atchafalaya Swamp. It was co-authored with his niece Hillary Wells and published in January of 2023.
Wells has also penned three non-fiction books: “Travels with Barley: A Quest for the Perfect Beer Joint (2004), a travelogue through America’s $75 billion beer industry; “The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous,” a story of blue-collar heroism in the wake of Hurricane Katrina; and “Gumbo Life: Tales from the Roux Bayou.” The Pirates, published in September 2008 by Yale University Press, won the Harry Chapin book award in September 2009.
Ken moved from Manhattan to Chicago in 2015 and divides his time these days between Chicago and a lovely little summer log cabin in the wilds of Maine. He’s an avid photographer, hiker and fisherman and dabbles in blues and jazz guitar and songwriting. He cooks a pretty good Cajun gumbo. You can read more about Ken on his website,
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David cates
