· a Taipei treasure hunt filled with ingenious puzzles that could lead to an inheritance from a late grandfather
· the rumored riches left behind by a small town’s eccentric turn-of-the-century seltzer magnate
· an armchair treasure hunt book based in gay history with clues to a revolutionary past hidden throughout San Francisco
· an old journal indicating that the legends of lost Cherokee gold were more than legends
Descriptors from four recently-announced books. One of these books has since been pulled from publication.
Treasure hunting seems to be having a moment, at least within the romance genre. For completely biased reasons, I’m a bit excited about that. In the summer of 2026, my own treasure hunting romance, Buried Feelings, will be entering the chat room.
· It’s not uncommon for a niche trope to find a mini explosion in film or literature. Treasure hunting has had its own uptick throughout different periods. In film, treasure hunting stories saw a spike in the 1980s with Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Goonies, and then again in the early 2000s with the National Treasure series and The Da Vinci Code. In books, fictional treasure hunting came to prominence with Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic adventure novel Treasure Island, published in 1883. Stevenson’s work gave way to a slew of similar adventure novels in the wake of its release. Then, almost a hundred years later, treasure hunting found a wholly new and radical relationship with literature.
In 1979, British author and artist Kit Williams released Masquerade, the first known example of an armchair treasure hunt book. Rather than write about a fictional treasure hunt, Williams’ picture book instead functioned as a treasure hunt in itself, which readers could solve from the comfort of, well, their own armchairs. An instant and massive phenomenon, Masquerade took the world by storm, with the hunt an ongoing news feature until it was eventually solved a few years later. Like Stevenson’s work, Williams ushered in a subgenre of additional armchair treasure hunt books, though none would go on to match his in popularity.
I mention all this background because I think it’s important that when we talk about treasure hunting in any form of narrative media—film, books, or otherwise—we consider what kind of treasure hunting we’re talking about, and how the specific narrative reflects a larger cultural understanding of the trope.
I wrote my master’s thesis on Kit Williams’ Masquerade. It was a book I had been introduced to in grade school, and had wedged its way deep into my mind ever since. In the process of writing about Williams’ work, and the subgenre of armchair treasure hunt books that followed in the 1980s, I researched where and why and how treasure hunting became such a popular topic in literature in the first place. The answers to my questions were, unsurprisingly, quite uncomfortable, and asked me to wrestle with some of the very real and persistent dangers in mythologizing various peoples and cultures.
Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island was directly inspired by Captain William Kidd, a real life figure who turned from pirate-catcher to actual pirate in his time on the sea. In 1699, Kidd learned of a warrant out for his arrest. In a bid to avoid capital punishment, Kidd buried a portion of his various stolen goods on Gardiner’s Island just outside of Long Island, New York. After his arrest and deportation to England, Kidd wrote to the governor of New York, begging for the governor’s help in exchange for the buried goods. But the governor instead swiftly found and confiscated the items, and Kidd was tried and executed in England.
Treasure Island, as well as the treasure hunting adventure novels that followed, highly romanticized the life and persona of the pirate. The buried treasures featured in these stories were seen as severed from any one rightful owner. They were goods that had been lost by pirates who were out to plunder and steal, and were now up for the taking by anyone brave enough to go looking for them. Often unmentioned in these stories were the countries and people these goods had been stolen from in the first place. Absent was the suffering, death, and loss experienced by the true owners of said treasures.
Even treasure hunting narratives involving Nazi-stolen treasure will find problematic themes that parallel those found in pirate tales. For, like the ships who were first plundered and left to sink into the ocean… the original owners of the precious items stolen by Nazis rarely make an appearance in the treasure hunting narrative. The emphasis instead is placed on the treasure itself, which must be retrieved not to be returned to a rightful owner, but so it can be admired by the rest of the world. These treasures, once stolen back from Nazi hands, often go on to live in museums—colonized institutions in themselves that have historically thrived on pilfering precious treasures from marginalized communities.
Alongside the treasure hunting stories featuring long-dead pirates are the treasure hunting stories based on myths of treasures hidden by marginalized cultures and ancient cities. El Dorado, the mysterious city of gold tucked somewhere in South America, is a prominent treasure hunting story that comes to mind. But additional research of El Dorado’s origins reveals a grave and willful misunderstanding from the Spanish invaders who infiltrated and destroyed the land belonging to the native inhabitants of South America. The myth of hidden treasure was invented and weaponized against the South American natives, offering one of many flimsy explanations behind the ensuing Spanish invasion.
Like El Dorado, tales of "lost Cherokee gold" have been used for centuries as shoddy explanation for the utter destruction and violation of Native lands and peoples. The few primary resources we have from the period of early white settlers in North America point time and time again to a resounding fact that gold was not seen as an inherently highly valuable material by Native populations. There were no hidden caches of gold that outsiders could uncover. And to suggest this kind of treasure trove so many years later, even within the context of one Native person relaying this information to another Native person, is, frankly, quite worrying.
So where does all this history bring us today? It tells us that when we talk about treasure hunting, or feature treasure hunting in narrative, we must do so extremely carefully. There are highly exciting aspects of hearing of lost treasure, of discovering clues to a lost treasure, of discovering a lost treasure itself. But within all this excitement, we must simultaneously reflect on what the concept of “lost treasure” means. Is it truly lost and for the taking? Is it stolen, with descendants who would rightfully be entitled to its return? Does the treasure’s existence—whether rumored or real—perpetuate a harmful and dangerous myth about a given community?
The treasure hunt in my own upcoming romance is directly inspired by one of the armchair treasure hunt books from the 1980s that followed on the heels of Masquerade. The Secret, a 1983 treasure hunt book conceived by Byron Preiss, gave readers clues to twelve treasures that had been buried in twelve different cities throughout North America. A lover of history, Preiss deliberately structured the clues in his book around moments of historical relevance in each city. Personally, I believe Preiss often chose historical moments that seemed in danger of being forgotten, believing that his treasure hunt could restore or at least reinvigorate cultural interest in certain pockets of history. This train of thought lead me to brainstorm about a fictional armchair treasure hunt book created in the 1980s with the intention of memorializing the incredible historical feats of the gay rights movement. Gay Treasures would be the title of the book within a book—referring to both actual treasure buried in the ground, as well as the treasured individuals of the LGBTQIA+ community itself.
I remain incredibly proud of my story’s concept, and excited to join the upcoming treasure hunt romance canon. (“Treasure Hunt Romance Canon”—new band name, called it!) I sincerely hope that more treasure hunting books will come along, and that we as readers can continue to hold space for newer titles on niche topics such as these while also remaining unafraid to engage in critical discourse whenever any book—regardless of trope—seems in danger of romanticizing troubling or offensive themes.
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