A“ Below Deck ”Fantasy Trip Turns Deadly in “Let's Not Go Overboard Here” — Read an Excerpt! (Exclusive)

Angel Saunders, Lizz SchumerFri, May 1, 2026 at 1:05 PM UTC

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Erica HendryCredit: may iosotaluno -

A new book that intertwines pop-culture and murder mystery is sailing your way

Let's Not Go Overboard Here is a Below Deck fantasy by Erica Hendry

“I wanted to have fun with the idea of imagining an amateur sleuth who attempts to solve a mystery using the same skills she’d use to analyze the latest reality TV scandal,” Hendry tells PEOPLE

Erica Hendry has made a literary debut that is sure to have millennials marveling.

Let's Not Go Overboard Here is a tale about what happens when a Below Deck fantasy trip turns deadly in a way only the University of California, Berkeley graduate could conjure up.

"I wrote Let’s Not Go Overboard Here as a love letter to all the thoughtful, intelligent people out there who find so much joy and connection through pop culture,” Hendry tells PEOPLE exclusively.

Erica HendryCredit: may iosotaluno

“My main character, Melanie, held a deep bond with her late best friend around their shared love of reality television, and I wanted to celebrate how the shows we watch and the culture we consume are more than just frivolous entertainment; they are a means of building community,” the chronically online millennial adds.

Hendry tells PEOPLE, “I also wanted to have fun with the idea of imagining an amateur sleuth who attempts to solve a mystery using the same skills she’d use to analyze the latest reality TV scandal. Because after all, who would make a better crew of detectives than your Bravo group chat?"

Check out PEOPLE’s exclusive excerpt from Hendry below and follow along on attorney Melanie Hoffman’s Grecian adventure.

“Hooooooly f--king s--t,” I breathe.

I know that yacht culture is a floating encapsulation of everything wrong with modern capitalist society, with the ultra-wealthy swanning around on fuel-guzzling behemoths while the rest of the planet burns and starves. Those orcas were well within their rights to take their revenge, carrying out Mother Nature’s punishment against humanity for its rapacious depravity.

And I know that I am a mentally unstable 32-year-old woman whose brain is 80 percent thoughts about her dead best friend and 20 percent thoughts about the movie Crossroads. As recent events have demonstrated, I can’t even hear the opening verses of a 2001 chart topper without making a beeline for the sea. I am hardly in a mental state to be living it up on a yacht right now.

But also...

Holy f--king s--t.

The Philomela swells above the water like the head of a submerged giant robotic bird. Glossy black windows serve as its narrowed eyes, the sharp bow a pointed beak. The back of its head is a ridged cascade of outdoor decks. Sharp antennae point skyward as feathers of adornment. The bird analogies are endless, but mostly I’m just reeling from the fact that I’m about to spend the next three days on this massive yacht.

So many of celebrity culture’s finest moments have taken place on or around yachts in recent years. A billionaire installing a sculpture of a woman on the prow of his vessel that looked like, but was in fact not, his new girlfriend. A young heartthrob with a pencil mustache consuming the face of a nepo baby like a sexy cannibal. A movie star helping a pop legend flop onto a dinghy while a talk show titan watched in amusement.

The Philomela swells above the water like the head of a submerged giant robotic bird. Glossy black windows serve as its narrowed eyes, the sharp bow a pointed beak. The back of its head is a ridged cascade of outdoor decks. Sharp antennae point skyward as feathers of adornment.

The bird analogies are endless, but mostly I’m just reeling from the fact that I’m about to spend the next three days on this massive yacht. So many of celebrity culture’s finest moments have taken place on or around yachts in recent years. A billionaire installing a sculpture of a woman on the prow of his vessel that looked like, but was in fact not, his new girlfriend. A young heartthrob with a pencil mustache consuming the face of a nepo baby like a sexy cannibal. A movie star helping a pop legend flop onto a dinghy while a talk show titan watched inamusement.

And now on this hot Grecian day in August of 2024, Melanie Hoffman and Vishal Agarwal, two humble attorneys at law, are about to add to that storied canon.

“Still want that refund?” Vish asks, rolling his suitcase along the cement dock. I had come to a halt in my awe and now hurry after him, my bag bumping along behind me.

“I never said such a thing, your honor! Motion for the prosecution to shut his lying piehole!”

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“Sustained.”

As we get closer, I catch sight of the crew in their whites arranged in front of the boat to greet us, and it’s like I’m experiencing déjà vu. While this is of course a completely new experience for me, Ari and I have simulated it countless times before. Our proxies were the endless stream of eccentrics, tyrants and douchebags that passed through all the Below Deck franchises over the years. It is strangely discombobulating that this time it’s me who’s having this experience, that it’s my feet walking down the dock and my neck turning red under the Mediterranean sun.

My grief has more flavors than a Baskin- Robbins, and the feeling that fills me now is a sense of profound injustice. How f---ed- up of the universe, how wrong, that I am here doing this and Ari isn’t. What a massive screwup at the administrative level. Dereliction of cosmic duty.

Vish approaches the boat and throws me a childlike smile of delight over his shoulder. I convert my lips into smile format in return, and another knell of the injustice bell rings. Because instead of some hot, evil British woman who could show him the time of his life, Vish is stuck on this trip with me, the world’s first living fossil. If he had any sense, he’d deposit me back into the earth’s crust.

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The crew gleam in their crisp white collared shirts, hands clasped, smiles bright. I take a deep breath. This is really happening. I am a passenger on this vessel. I am imminently seafaring.

The first to greet us is the captain. Bald, tall, straight- backed, strong-nosed, he looks like he could tame a jungle cat into submission with his stare alone.

“I’m Captain Murdoch MacPherson,” he declares in a thick Scottish accent, his handshake like an iron clamp. “Welcome aboard the Philomela. Most of your fellow passengers are already onboard, and this is the rest of the crew.”

Vish and I introduce ourselves to the captain, and then we’re on to the chef, a small bearded man bristling with kinetic energy like a wound spring.

“Chef Mateo Lozano,” he says, shaking each of our hands at hyperspeed.

“Chef Mateo previously worked at a Michelin- starred restaurant in Mexico City,” Captain MacPherson shares, and Vish almost faints.

Next up is the chief stew, a stunningly attractive redheaded woman with a face frozen somewhere between fury and disdain.

“Bonjour,” she says, and I have never been more intimidated by a single word in my life. “Heloise Gagnon. It is a pleasure to have you aboard.”

It feels like it is anything but, so I hurry on, eagerly grabbing the next hand in line. It’s warm and strong and connected to a tan, lean arm covered in little tattoos. I look up and find myself momentarily lost for words. The hand’s owner has salt- crinkled curly bronze hair tied up in a ponytail, olive- colored eyes and silver piercings running up the sides of both her ears.

“G’day?” she asks, like it’s a question, and I realize suddenly that I’ve been shaking her hand for an abnormal length of time. I drop it, my ears flaming. “Abby Rossi. Bosun.”

“A female bosun! Like Malia!” someone says, and to my deep dismay that someone turns out to be me. Abby’s face immediately clouds over.

“Don’t know a Malia,” she says curtly, and I have to physically restrain myself from jumping into the water. Vish shoots me a look, and I rush to the next person in line, a beaming young woman with perfectly styled shiny brown hair.

“Jasmine Galang, steward,” she says in a chipper American accent.

“Love your sunglasses, diva. Go off.”

'Lets Not Go Overboard Here' by Erica HendryCredit: may iosotaluno

“Thank you so much,” I say with vigor, because a compliment from a member of Gen Z is something to be treasured like a rare jewel.

I move on to the next crew member, a man so buff his muscles are moments away from destroying the structural integrity of his shirt.

“Petros Sideris,” he says as he shakes my hand, his grip surprisingly gentle. “Deckhand. I grew up on Crete, so it is my pleasure to show you this beautiful island.”

I introduce myself. Then I’m on to the final crew member in the line- up, who is... Jax Taylor? My jaw practically unhinges as the thick- necked, blue- eyed man in front of me shakes my now- limp hand in his. As discreetly as I can, I start scanning all around me for cameras. Is this some sort of new Below Deck / Vanderpump crossover event I was unaware of? Don’t these people know there’s a reality TV villain in their midst? But then his face cracks into a genuine, veneer- free, very un- Jax- like smile, and a very un- Jax- like British accent comes out of his mouth.

“Mac Howe!” Fake Jax cries as he pumps my hand. “Deckhand! Welcome aboard, love! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, which means you can do pretty much anything you like!”

Everyone around me is laughing like the comedian of the year has come to town, but I just feel unsettled. I look closer, and other differences emerge —Mac’s forehead isn’t as big as Jax’s and his hair is a lighter shade of brown. But still, he’s got the same sinister Lord Licorice goatee and a head so square it could be used to demolish buildings.

I haven’t set foot onboard yet, but it still feels like the world is rocking underneath my feet. However, before I can latch on to the feeling, a flute of champagne is thrust into my hand, my suitcase is spirited away and Vish and I are ushered along the gangway toward our fates.

Excerpted from LET'S NOT GO OVERBOARD HERE by Erica Hendry. Copyright © 2026 by Erica Hendry. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Let's Not Go Overboard Here arrives on June 2, 2026 from Grand Central Publishing and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.

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