KILL YOUR DARLINGS by Peter Swanson is an addictively dark romantic thriller about a middle-aged couple bound by deadly secrets. When it is time for the marriage to end, one member makes the final push, and readers will travel back in time to see how Thom and Wendy arrived at this pivotal moment on a concrete stairway in Georgetown, DC. Thom and Wendy look like the perfect settled couple. They have plenty of money and they live in a picturesque home on the ocean in Massachusetts. Thom teaches English Literature at the nearby university and Wendy has obtained her own small literary success. Their son, Jason, is fully grown and all is well at home..... except for Thom’s heavy drinking and flirting, and Wendy’s increasing suspicions that his sloppiness will unravel their carefully constructed life. How did one act of murder bind Thom and Wendy together and cause further unspeakable acts? As Thom is weighed down by his conscious, Wendy finds herself increasingly annoyed. What happens when love turns to hate and a bond built on bloodshed finally breaks? KILL YOUR DARLINGS begins at the end and rewinds to the beginning, unraveling the story of a couple doomed from the moment they met. Spanning from 2023 back to 1982, the novel moves through multiple timelines in Wendy and Thom’s lives from birthday parties, career milestones, the birth of their child, affairs, chance encounters, and even a few murders. Both Wendy and Thom are toxic, complex, and deeply flawed. While each is manipulative and deceitful in their own way, Wendy proves to be the more calculating of the two. Together, they carefully construct a curated version of happiness by eliminating whatever and whoever they believe stands in their way, all while justifying their most unforgivable actions. The narrative moves at a brisk pace, though the shifting timelines and occasional repetition may challenge some readers. Still, KILL YOUR DARLINGS delivers a wild, twist-filled journey through a marriage fueled by obsession and ego, detoured by midlife boredom, and ending much as it began with a calculated act of ruthless necessity. The final twist offers a grim satisfaction: a clear reminder that for the last one standing, there is no such thing as a happy ending.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Kind Worth Killing and Eight Perfect Murders comes an inventive, utterly propulsive murder-mystery in reverse, tracing a marriage back in time to uncover the dark secret at its heart.
Thom and Wendy Graves have been married for over twenty-five years. They live in a beautiful Victorian on the north shore of Massachusetts. Wendy is a published poet and Thom teaches English literature at a nearby university. Their son, Jason, is all grown up. All is well…except that Wendy wants to murder her husband.
What happens next has everything to do with what happened before. The story of Wendy and Thom’s marriage is told in reverse, moving backward through time to witness key moments from the couple’s lives—their fiftieth birthday party, buying their home, Jason’s birth, the mysterious death of a work colleague—all painting a portrait of a marriage defined by a single terrible act they plotted together many years ago.
Eventually we learn the details of what Thom and Wendy did in their early twenties, a secret that has kept them bound together through the length of their marriage. But its power over them is fraying, and each of them begins to wonder if they would be better off making sure their spouse carries their secrets to the grave.
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