Love Me Stalk Me
A Novel
-
-
4.5 • 4 Ratings
-
-
- $2.99
Publisher Description
A USA TODAY Bestseller
For fans of Lights Out and You comes a dark rom-com debut about a woman who confides her fantasies to an AI boyfriend app—unaware she’s really talking to her hot, tattooed coworker who hacked her phone.
When overworked department store manager Izzy Russo downloads an AI boyfriend app to fill the emotional void left by her inattentive real one, she thinks she’s just venting to a harmless chatbot named “Caleb.” In reality, she’s been pouring her deepest, dirtiest fantasies into the ears of Callahan Knight—her store’s brooding new head of security.
Because Cal? He’s been listening. The moment he saw Izzy, he knew she was his. Did he hack her phone? Absolutely. But who could blame him? A woman like Izzy deserves to be cherished by someone who truly knows her worth—and he’ll do anything to be that man.
So when Izzy finally sees her boyfriend for who he really is, and the danger she’s unknowingly been caught up in, Cal is ready to protect her, no matter the cost. Even if it means revealing the truth.
She might not have meant to build the perfect man. But he’s here now. And he’s never letting her go.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bishop debuts with a ludicrous dark romance set in a luxury Manhattan department store. Monarch's gorgeous new head of security, Callahan "Cal" Knight, an ex-military badass brought in to handle the threat of organized retail crime, is hyperbolically obsessed with hyper-competent store manager Izzy Russo from the moment he first sees her. His logical next step is to hack her phone. This happens to coincide with Izzy downloading an AI boyfriend app looking for the intimacy she's not getting from her emotionally abusive boyfriend. She programs the robot to be possessive, supportive, and confident, and bases its avatar on Cal—which Cal takes as a green light to step in. What follows is a twisted take on You've Got Mail as the pair grow closer both in real life and on the app, where Izzy shares her sexual fantasies. Every other man that Izzy crosses paths with, save for her rowdy Italian brothers, is cartoonishly misogynistic in comparison to Cal, who worships and respects Izzy (just not her privacy) and repeatedly comes to her rescue, including from an attempted rape. Bishop never meaningfully reckons with Cal's violation: a late reveal lets him entirely off the hook for his stalking. Add in mind-numbingly repetitious prose and a final twist that's telegraphed too early, and this misses the mark.
