{"id":189339,"date":"2025-08-31T12:40:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T12:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/189339\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T12:40:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T12:40:10","slug":"love-in-the-time-of-serial-killers-is-a-perfect-romance-for-cynics-and-sceptics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/189339\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Love in the Time of Serial Killers\u2019 is a perfect romance for cynics and sceptics"},"content":{"rendered":"

A non-reader of romance, I picked up Love in the Time of Serial Killers<\/a> as a beach read on a recent vacation. The agenda was not to commit to anything serious, but rather to let off steam. Dear reader, I\u2019m happy to report that not only did it make my holiday more fun, but it was also an excellent romance.<\/p>\n

Meet the neighbour<\/p>\n

Phoebe Walsh, a PhD candidate and a true-blue true crime nut, decides to spend the summer in Florida to get her dead father\u2019s business in order. True crime is also her area of research, and over the summer, she plans to write a chapter on Truman Capote\u2019s In Cold Blood \u2013 a book she has been obsessed with all her life and forms a major crux of her dissertation. All she has brought from North Carolina is her massive desk in the hopes that she doesn\u2019t slack off and takes her writing seriously.<\/p>\n

When she arrives at her childhood home at midnight, she is stumped by just how heavy the desk is and as she wonders about how to move it into the house, a strange man \u2013 quite literally appearing out of nowhere \u2013 offers to help. Dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, his eyes barely visible under his hair, and his odd cheerfulness so late at night sets Phoebe\u2019s alarm bells ringing. She\u2019s read too many true crime stories, she knows the mind of a seasoned criminal \u2013 this guy, seemingly normal looking, is definitely a serial killer. Or so she convinces herself.<\/p>\n

And she has every reason to suspect so. The man is awake at all hours of the night pacing the rooms, the walls appear to be soundproof but they do not entirely conceal the strange noises coming from the house. And did she also not see him drenched in something red? What if, god forbid, it\u2019s blood?<\/p>\n

Worse still, he lives right next door. His name is Sam Dennings.<\/p>\n

However, in daytime, he appears quite normal, a seemingly well-adjusted citizen, and Phoebe is surprised when she\u2019s drawn in to his quiet, easygoing nature. She is not looking for friendship, much less a romance. If the neighbour situation wasn\u2019t testing enough, Phoebe runs into her childhood friend Alison, who\u2019s an admin at the local library. Unsure of rekindling a friendship soured by teenage awkwardness, Phoebe is taken aback to learn that unlike her, Alison harbours no grudges. As Alison offers (once more) her hand in friendship, Phoebe cannot help but sift through the memories of her childhood, including the friendship break-up.<\/p>\n

Falling in love<\/p>\n

The house does not let her forget how she would feel as a child \u2013 deeply unhappy and eternally ashamed. Author Alicia Thompson constructs her protagonist\u2019s childhood with great empathy \u2013 we learn of Phoebe\u2019s troubled relationship with her father, his anger that ruined any semblance of normalcy, and her mother\u2019s quiet obedience to him, and camping trips and birthdays undone by her parents\u2019 fights.<\/p>\n

However, Phoebe seems to be unevenly affected by her parents\u2019 messed-up marriage. Conner, her 23-year-old younger brother, is a happy-go-lucky man, almost comically in love with his Indian girlfriend, Shani. Despite growing up in two separate homes, the siblings share a deep bond of genuine affection. Phoebe and Conner\u2019s banter is truly endearing (almost making me yearn for a brother of my own). While Phoebe suffers from extreme guilt and believes herself to be at fault for a big part of her parents\u2019 unhappiness, Conner reminds her that, like him, she was just a child \u2013 and if anything, her love shielded him from the kind of loneliness that she endured in silence.<\/p>\n

Sam\u2019s (literally) guy-next-door charm and a very regular personality are a happy shift from the turbulent masculine presence Phoebe has grown up with. Thompson\u2019s male protagonist boasts of no suavity; sexy is not his second name, he has no way with words \u2013 but what pierces Phoebe\u2019s heart (and the reader\u2019s!) is his sincere warmth and solid presence.<\/p>\n

But no love story is without hiccups. Phoebe has been lugging around heavy emotional luggage all her life, creating a deep scepticism for romantic relationships. And when things start to get serious with Sam, Phoebe feels the walls around her coming up again. Thompson is not the one to overturn the rules of romance, so thankfully, there\u2019s a patch-up at the end \u2013 dramatic enough to make even the strongest of romance cynics (me!) smile.<\/p>\n

Love in the Time of Serial Killers works on many levels \u2013 a small group of adults showing up for each other, men who do not just pretend to be good, two sweet love stories, a bossy cat, and a heroine who\u2019s quirky and unapologetically herself. A very likeable romance for cynics, sceptics, and secret optimists.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Love in the Time of Serial Killers, Alicia Thompson, Berkley.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A non-reader of romance, I picked up Love in the Time of Serial Killers as a beach read…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":189340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[105896,105898,105897,105900,1022,97560,171,105894,105895,105899,9454,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-189339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-alicia-thompson-love-in-the-time-of-serial-killers","9":"tag-alicia-thompson-love-in-the-time-of-serial-killers-review","10":"tag-alicia-thompson-romances","11":"tag-book-recommendation","12":"tag-books","13":"tag-books-and-ideas","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-love-in-the-time-of-serial-killers","16":"tag-love-in-the-time-of-serial-killers-alicia-thompson","17":"tag-love-in-the-time-of-serial-killers-review","18":"tag-romance","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115123429422236170","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}