Review – Love in the Time of Serial Killers

Synopsis

After losing her dad, Phoebe has moved down to Florida for the summer to work on getting his house ready to sell while also working on dissertation for her PhD. Definitely hoping her younger brother, Conner, will be helpful getting things done so she can stay on track with her paper. Her choice of topic? True Crime. Which may explain why she’s constantly spying on the neighbor making sure he is not a serial killer. It has nothing to do with how cute he is & assuredly only because he’s covered in a mystery red liquid at 11pm. Defintely just that. Mostly. Conner would say she’s paranoid & is using the neighbor as an excuse to avoid her grief (thank his therapist for that helpful analysis.) Luckily, he’s a little distracted trying to get the house square & figuring out how to propose to his girlfriend. Phoebe on the other hand absolutely does not believe love is in the cards for her. So it’s certainly not surprising when Sam, the maybe serial killer neighbor, starts hanging around that she’s totally clueless to what this weird feeling is when she thinks about their future. It’s probably nothing. Right? I mean can the weird depressed girl obsessed with serial killers fall in love with an elementary school music teacher? Maybe she should just focus on her paper…if she can stay away.

Break It Down

Story: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 – 4 Stars
Holy cow – this was cute. I smiled through the entire book and I really enjoyed the reverse grumpy / sunshine vibe. As someone that constantly watches crime dramas – I absolutely loved Phoebe. She was awesome. I liked how she wasn’t a “flowing chestnut hair & bewitching green eyes” type female character. She was a full-figured, independent, messy bun girl & I loved it. && Sam in his frickin khakis. 😍😍 Gah this was too good. Phoebe’s inner dialogue was hilarious. She had me laughing through the entire book. I loved the healing friendship storyline with her childhood bestie. Her little brother was the perfect meddling younger sibling. All of it was just fun. I loved all the demensions of Phoebe we got to see. I just didn’t want the story to end! Such a fun one.

Content: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – 4 Stars
Single POV. I always complain about this. The author did a really good job with this one though. I only wished for Sam’s POV like twice. Which for me means it was written well enough that we could infer how he felt most of the time. That’s hard to do & I was impressed. The story had a lot of info & I liked all the references to serial killers. They were fun little bits that added to the story. I was a big fan of how the story moved forward. Things get moving quickly towards the end but it didn’t gloss over anything important. I enjoyed reading this one a lot.

Spice: 🔥🔥 – 2 Flames
Sam was sexier than I was expecting from an elementary school teacher. 🤣🤣 I loved how attentive he was to Phoebe too. There aren’t a lot of sex scenes but the few we do get are good. Not anything super erotic but definitely detailed just enough to keep me interested. In general it isn’t a very spicy book but the sexy moments are very well written.

Overall: ✨✨✨✨ – 4 Stars
Four stars is my standard “I really enjoyed this. You should read this.” rating. I consider this a solid four star read. It was super cute & Phoebe was so funny. Her obnoxious brother & cat obsessed childhood bestie were such cute side characters. The whole book was full of fun moments & I laughed out loud quite a few times. I especially loved the buildup at the beginning when everyone is so suspicious of Sam. This was a top read this month for sure.