an ok read!

- thanks to netgalley & the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Phoebe Walsh, a PhD candidate and true crime prose expert, comes back to Florida to prepare for the sale of her childhood house after her estranged father’s death. While clearing it out, she has to deal with her good-natured younger brother and her new neighbour Sam, who she suspects might be a serial killer...

Love in Time of Serial Killers is an original romance novel. Mostly because of the number of true crime references, which is natural considering Phoebe’s obsession with the genre. This makes the read different from your usual romantic story, adding some interest. Unfortunately, the book has some faults as well. The biggest of them is the lack of a linear plot. Everything seems to happen spontaneously and for no apparent reason in this book. It would still be fine if it wasn’t for Phoebe’s personality, which is hardly suitable for a main character of a romance novel.

"The pulsing heartbeat of true crime, of all human stories when you got right down to it, was we all wanted and hoped and dreamed and loved, but we had no control over what happened in the end."

This was a very interesting and fun romance, whilst it had the classic tropes of a small town romance and boy next door, I really liked that this had a different approach with the inclusion of true crime. The main character, Phoebe is paranoid and uses humour as her coping mechanism, who would sometimes “cross over from endearingly neurotic to obsessively weird.” She is relatable in her fears and anxieties with “the reality that so many lives are interrupted, so many dreams unfulfilled”. From her fathers’ death she becomes closer to her brother, more accepting of love and reconciles with her old friends.

I really liked the concept of the true crime obsessed, there were many true crime references briefly mentioned throughout, nothing gruesome or heavy. Whilst I would have preferred more of a mystery, it was good that this had a lighthearted approach to make the romance more appealing. A big part of Phoebe’s character is her dissertation on true crime and when it starts to come to the end she realises that “these books promise closure and justice,”. As the story progresses so does her development as she started to open up more. This would be great for those who like true crime but in need of a light romance and enjoy second chance romance.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK for sending me this ARC in exchange for a review.

i really wanted to like this book... i really did. but it just fell so flat for me. in my opinion, there is nothing worse than a story just not working for you. the plot really dragged on and i found myself getting rather bored as there wasn't much plot in there. sam and phoebe were really funny together, but i just couldn't find myself connecting to them. i loved the true crime references in this book - i am a sucker for crime and will always find it interesting.

while i gave this book, two stars, it does not mean whatsoever that this is a bad book. the good thing about reading is that it is entirely subjective - everyone has different tastes, and while this book was not for me, it could be absolutely everything and more for someone else.

What happens when a true crime obsessed women and a nice guy meet and she thinks he could be a serial killer ?
Will she able to end her PHD dissertation, clean her childhood home, bear her young brother, and deal with the complex emotions caused by the death of her father ?
It's an excellent story that deals with serious issues, made me smile and root for the characters.
I loved the storytelling and I can't wait to read other books by this author.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

I LOVE IT.

Who didn't have crushes on people who looked like Gerard Way in the Helena music video?
Lots of Paramore and Chvrches references? Crash Bandicoot?

2023 truly is my year of reading characters-into-true-crime year, and not one of them has disappointed.

Phoebe is an emotionally unavailable woman getting a PhD about true crime who is tasked with cleaning out her dad's house after he dies. This is so much fun - it is funny, witty, and lovely. Every character we meet could have multiple extra chapters or books they are that well-formed. I love them all.

What can I say? No notes.

⭐️⭐️.5

I really, really wanted to love this book. The premise sounds so fun (a book about a woman who thinks that her next door neighbour/love interest is a serial killer? Sign me up!) also the cover really spoke to me. I was expecting so many shenanigans: spying, creeping around, looking for clues as to wether or not he IS a serial killer. However… we didn’t get any of that, which made this book insanely boring to me.

I thought that the serial killer aspect that the book promised to provide would last a while, but it disappears within the first 80 pages, and the only thing that made me remember that part of the storyline were the true crime facts sprinkled throughout the rest of the book. I felt super let down by that.

Also I found Phoebe, the main character to be so unlikeable, which I can usually get past, but I just couldn’t with this one. Dan, the love interest was cute if you like a golden retriever boy, but sadly, I left this book with the thought that Phoebe and Sam would last 6 months tops… Which is not a good sign for a romcom. So honestly, i’d pass on this one :(

Read if you like:
💙 True crime references
💙 Grumpy/sunshine
💙 Miscommunication trope
💙 Golden retriever love interest

(Thank you so much to Random House UK / Transworld for the EARC!)

💙

I really enjoyed Love in the Time of Serial Killers.
It was a lot of fun and actually made me laugh out loud multiple times.
I also really loved Phoebe as I found her highly entertaining as well as a little relatable.
I definitely highly recommend this book!
Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Phoebe's emotions are as hidden as a serial killer, but will she learn that feelings aren't a bad thing?

Phoebe is currently writing her PhD dissertation on true crime and serial killers when her Father unexpectedly dies from a heart attack. She returns back to her childhood home to clear out his house with the help of her brother, Conner, to get it ready to be put on the market and sold. Due to her parents divorce and difficult childhood, her emotions are guarded and lives a very solo life. However, she fell in love with true crime and decided to focus her studies on this, even though it is a niche subject. This has made her very alert and aware of suspicious people, rating them on a scale of whether they could be a murderer or not.

When she arrives home in the early hours after a long drive, she can't work out how to carry her desk to the house, when a man appears and offers his help. She declines and tells him she has mace! When she wakes up the next morning, she finds her desk waiting for her at the front door. She meets her attractive neighbour, Sam, when a package for him gets mistakenly delivered to her house and finally works out that he is the one that offered her help that night. She spends her time wondering what Sam is up to - why does he have so many outfit changes? Why is he up late at night? What is he doing in his garage? This leaves you wondering if Sam is a nice guy, or if he is Ted Bundy-esk, good looking but a serial killer in disguise!

Love in the Time of Serial Killers has me laughing out loud, falling in love with our protagonist Phoebe, bringing me joy in the form of serial killer facts, and all round rooting for all the good things to happen! I absolutely loved this book so there is no way I can rate it any less than 5 stars, I couldn't put it down! Also, references to Reddit? Hello! Phoebe reminded me a lot of myself at parts and I felt I could really understand her.

Thank you NetGalley, Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and Carey Baldwin for letting me read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I didn't look into this book much at all before reading it, I was just enticed by the incredible cover and title! I find that stories about people coming back to their home towns after a long period of time and reconnecting with their pasts always makes for an interesting read, and I did really enjoy that aspect of this book, especially Phoebe's growing relationship with her brother and his girlfriend. As someone who has written university essays on In Cold Blood, it was weird but quite nice to have it be the focus of the protagonist's dissertation as I actually understood the references. However, Phoebe's borderline obsession with the genre did frustrate me at times when I felt it was being used as a plot device to hinder her relationship with Sam, and it annoyed me when she behaved rudely for no need. Saying that, I did find myself enjoying the writing style, and I will be looking out for Thompson's upcoming romance.

Okay well this was so fun to read. I really enjoyed it. A nice palette cleanser after some harder reads. Would deffo recommend!

Such a fun and hilarious read. The perfect debut by Alicia Thompson. Entertaining from beginning to end and perfect for lovers of true crime. If I could describe the perfect romance book for me, this would be it.

Thanks to Penguin Random House UK for providing me with a free e-copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This book follows Phoebe, who is obsessed with true crime. So obsessed that she is basing her PhD research on the genre. And so obsessed that when she moves back to her hometown after her dad dies, she immediately thinks that her neighbour, Sam, is a serial killer.

There wasn’t much plot to this book. I was hoping that there would be more to the whole ‘I think my neighbour is a serial killer’ aspect, but it was resolved pretty quickly, and even when it was a part of the plot, I feel like I wanted the author to do more than that. There were a few other sub-plots woven throughout the story, but nothing particularly interesting – which is okay because most people don’t read romance books for the plot.

The romance itself was a bit of a letdown for me. It wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t great. It just . . . was. Phoebe was an interesting character, and I liked that we really got to dive into her history and her mindset, but I didn’t particularly like her as a person, especially when it comes to how she treats Sam. Sam was a good hero, although I think I would have liked him more had this book been a dual POV story.

Overall, though, this was a unique take on the romance genre. The writing was good, it was a quick and easy read, and I had a fun time with it! It wasn’t mind-blowing, but it did what a romance sets out to do, and I wouldn’t hesitate to pick up more from this author.

This was such a good book!

I thought the premise of this book was really original and I just loved the characters. The main character, Phoebe, is a Ph.D. candidate who works with true crime, so that obviously bleeds into the way she deals with meeting people, especially when it comes to her love life. After her father dies, she moves back into her childhood home to arrange everything to sell the house and she ends up meeting her father's neighbor, Sam. However, true crime is really a getaway she found as a child to deal with life and it's also a way of pushing people away.

This was such a fun read. The characters were really interesting and nuanced. Sam was really sweet and not simply a stereotype of a perfect man, like we sometimes see in romance novels. The writing style was really fast-paced and easy to read, without being too superficial, for example, when dealing with the topic of the character's Ph.D.

Thank you, NetGalley and Random House UK for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

As a crime- lover I quite enjoyed this book. I really liked Phoebe and Sam together, they were very funny. I was hooked from the start. However, as I got more into the book, I wasn’t as invested.

Unfortunately, I think this book just wasn’t for me and after reading half of it I have to DNF. The start was very slow and I was hoping it would pick up but it just hasn’t. Being in Phoebe’s head was exhausting and it felt like she was constantly trying to see the bad in people for no reason at all. I loved the cover and premise of the book so I was very excited for it but I think my expectations were just a little too high.

From the title, I wasn’t too sure if this novel would be a crime thriller with romance or a romance in its entirety but it turns out this is the love story of a crime fiction student working towards her doctorate.
After the recent passing of her estranged father, Phoebe returns to her childhood home with her car and her trusty desk in tow to be reunited with her younger brother who had stayed with their father when their parents divorced. The plan is simple. Move back, finish her dissertation, do her defense to earn her doctorate, prepare and sell the house and move to wherever she is offered a job. It turns out reuniting with her brother, meeting the initially creepy neighbour Sam and resolving issues with her old friend Alison does Phoebe a lot of good and she becomes a lot happier.
Through the novel you can read the improvement in Phoebe’s mood. She doesn’t seem as obsessive about her dissertation about half way.
I enjoyed the premise but I felt kind of let down from the 50% mark. I think having serial killers in the title sets up a fairly strong sense there will be some crime-based plot happening - which it doesn’t.
I didn’t dislike the book but I wasn’t enthralled by it either. There wasn’t a lot of emotion behind the characters. Sam was mediocre. An elementary music teacher who butted into other people’s business, for example moving Phoebe’s desk after she was freaked out by him in the dark, mowing the lawn. Phoebe seemed really two dimensional. She wasn’t really concerned about her brother or the fact her father had died. When Shani gave her the book on grief and she was kind of rude in her response when all she was trying to do was connect and help her soon to be sister in law.
I think if the characters showed more depth and maybe a hint of what the title promised then this would have been better.
I look forward to reading the author’s upcoming releases.

This book was made for me. I am the girl obsessed with true crime always suspecting people of crimes that I know they haven’t committed. And I felt all of this reflected in this book. Alicia Thompson writes such a funny and loving book about a girl who is obsessed with serial killers but still finds love along the way and I cannot wait to see what she comes up with next. This book was one of my favourite kinds of romcoms; easy to read and funny in all the right places. Also how cute is the cover!

Phoebe has just moved back home after her dad’s death in order to clean out his house whilst also trying to finish her dissertation on serial killers. However, when her new neighbour starts behaving suspiciously, she starts to suspect him of being a serial killer. But as she gets to know Sam, she starts to find herself feeling more than she has in a long time. As she starts to spend more time with her brother, old friends and Sam she begins to realise how much she suspects the worst and maybe something she finds much scarier is love. 

I loved the characters in this book. Phoebe is so prickly and sarcastic; she has a wall up and its going to take a lot to bring it down. Seeing her overcome these issues within this book was so interesting and seeing her interactions with Sam was adorable. Also, her writing her dissertation was so relatable to me at the moment as I am doing my masters, so I loved reading this aspect. Sam was the gender-reversed version of the girl next door. He was sweet, loving and you just wanted to know him in real life. Of course, her brother and his girlfriend were also just the cutest.

My main love of this book was the referencing to pop culture as well as true crime cases that were familiar to me. I did wish that it references how the true crime community can be harmful when taken to the extreme but other than that I loved the references. It showed that the author clearly had an interest in this topic, and I feel as a reader that I really enjoyed reading about it. 

The writing style, the themes and the setting of this book was super enjoyable to me. I was worried that this book sounded too good to be true and I am so glad I loved it as much as I did. My favourite bit was definitely when Phoebe suspected Sam of being a serial killer in the beginning. The relationship aspect of this book was definitely a lot more than the romance which I really enjoyed. It was about Phoebes relationships with the people around her which was really refreshing to see rather than a pure focus on the romance. 

This book was just really fun and sweet. I gave it a four stars and it could even be a four and a half stars because I just had such an enjoyable time reading it. I wish there were more books that contained a romance as well as true crime aspects because I just loved the cross over! I would definitely read more of this authors work in the future and I hope she brings out more like this. 

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book for review!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Phoebe is stressed. Her Dissertation is due soon, her dad just died and his house needs to be ready to go on the market in 4 weeks. She moves all the way to Florida with only her writing desk to help the brother she's barely seen since their parents divorced years ago. And honestly, while she knows that her work in true crime as a genre for her dissertation has made her slightly hypervigilant, there's a small part of her that is convinced the neighbor is a serial killer.
He can't actually be that nice and good-looking, right?

Do you know, when you disappear into a book? You, your surroundings, everything, ceases to exist?
This book was that for me. I loved Phoebe, her dry humor and the way her first instinct is to make a dumb and embarrassing joke. The way she either shares nothing or too much. The way she loves her work, but still procrastinates it, especially the part most important to her, because she's scared she won't do it justice. Her anxious thoughts, her spirals. I think the biggest part of why I loved this book is because of how intensely I related to her.
And she wasn't the only incredibly well written character. I really enjoyed both the brother and is girlfriend as characters and the multiple storylines they were included in, from their own mini-love-story to their role in Phoebe's own character development. Another one I wish we had seen more of, but who I loved in the little bits and pieces we got was Phoebe's childhood friend, who she meets after years of not speaking in the library and she promptly makes herself a huge fool of in front of. Hilarious. Completely dumb. Absolutely could have been me.
I also really enjoyed the love interest, Sam, and the development of the relationship between him and Phoebe. I can't say much about this without spoilers but the whole thing made me laugh out loud and smile like an idiot sooo often.
The book was witty and fun, but also thought out and honest.

I only have two things to criticise:
1. I really would have liked a bit of input of the effects of the sensationalisation of true crime on the families of victims, especially because Phoebe's dissertation is about how the relationships between the authors of true crime books to the killers influence the perspective and tone. I wouldn't have needed much, but a sentence or two would have been nice.
2. The state of my digital ARC was disasterous. This is a rerelease, there is absolutely no reason why the quality should have been this bad. Every time an ff, fl, or fi letter combination was in the text, the letters disappeared. Waffle House became W e House. It was barely legible in some places. I think it's likely to avoid stealing but like, this just isn't it. That being said, I really loved this book and I'm sure the formatting issue doesn't appear in print or final digital copies.

I definitely recommend this book to any anxious bookworms who want a fun and witty romcom with an exploration of what it means to be in relationships, what it can cost but also what it can give.

This is hilarious!
Thank you so much for granting me access to this novel. I love that this FL was so relatable to me, we have the same reactions to things it felt like I was seeing myself in print. The character development of this novel is exquisite.