How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates
A Novel
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
“A delightful celebration of rom-coms, slasher flicks, and the women who love them.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
A humorous, swoony, and downright terrifying slasher rom-com in which a cinephile gets caught in the middle of a murder spree at a speed-dating event and must use her encyclopedic knowledge of the romance and horror genres to make it as a real-life Final Girl.
When Jamie Prescott and her best friend Laurie attend a speed-dating event, Jamie expects to meet a roster of mediocre men and indulge in some street food afterwards. She doesn’t expect one of her dates to have his throat slit at their table during a blackout. After the lights come back on and there are more bodies on the floor, it becomes clear that dating can be a very dangerous pastime.
Armed with makeshift weapons and Jamie’s extensive knowledge of what NOT to do in a slasher, the remaining speed daters try to find an exit while the killer adds to their body count. As the night progresses and Jamie comes face-to-mask with the murderer, she begins to suspect they are committing the slayings to woo one of the daters and turn them into a real-life Final Girl. But Jamie has other plans, and as she fights for her life, she can’t help but find herself ensconced in a love triangle with two of the other survivors. Will she make it through the bloodshed to find her Happily Ever After? Or does this machete-wielding psychopath have another ending in mind?
For fans of Love in the Time of Serial Killers and Butcher & Blackbird, How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates is one killer love story.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A scholar and a serial killer are both searching for love in this funny horror-romance mashup. PhD candidate Jamie Prescott is writing her dissertation on slasher films and rom-coms, much to the dismay of her best friend, Laurie. When they attend a speed dating event and a potential suitor there is murdered, Jamie notices that many of the tropes she’s studied in fiction are part of the real-life crime. Author Shailee Thompson’s witty, sharp tale is full of wicked humor and clever nods to classic horror films like Scream and Nightmare on Elm Street. Maneuvering her utterly relatable heroine into dangerous final-girl territory, Thompson masterfully plays up the sweet and spicy sides of romance, soaking it all in enough gore to get our hearts really pumping. Fast, funny, and shockingly romantic at its core, How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates is a truly killer love story.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Like a rom-com twist on Scream, debut author Thompson's unputdownable slasher-romance mash-up gets a meta edge from protagonist Jamie Prescott's passion for both genres. Jamie, a grad student at work on a thesis about the similarities between horror films and rom-coms, attends a speed dating event at a nightclub with her roommate, Laurie—but the night takes a sharp turn away from romance and toward horror when one of her speed dates is found murdered. The novel plays out over the course of this one violent night, as the remaining attendees realize they are locked in the club with the murderer and fight for survival. It's a gripping and often gory high-stakes drama that still leaves room for romance to blossom between some of the speed daters, including Jamie and cool under pressure Wes. Thompson dextrously balances horror and romance tropes, using Jamie's genre-savvy narration to provide tongue-in-cheek commentary, and opens each chapter with horrific twists on classic rom-com quotes ("When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life killing somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." —Not When Harry Met Sally"). It's pure entertainment.
