Butcher & Blackbird gets a sapphic office twist in this bitingly funny and darkly suspenseful romance about a serial killer who falls in love with her cubicle mate, from bestselling author Jennifer Dugan.

Tate Jones’s daytime life is boring and predictable, just the way she likes it. She gets up at the same time every morning, does the same workout, sits in the same traffic, and then spends the next eight hours in her cubicle answering customer service calls. But Tate’s unremarkable “day job” persona camouflages her true self: Tate is a serial killer. Mentored by her best friend and fellow predator Nico, Tate spends her nights happily dragging her favorite knife across the necks of her many (some might say deserving) victims.

Tate’s two selves collide, however, when she meets Cordelia Mass—the inconsiderate, messy night-shift worker who shares her cubicle, and whose “Employee of the Month” certificate Tate has been dreaming of tearing into tiny pieces and shoving down Cordelia’s throat. And then Tate breaks the most important rule of her predictable, unremarkable, safe daytime life—she falls in love.

Nico points out again and again that pursuing a “normie” isn’t just a bad idea, it’s a colossally horrible one. The kind that gets Tate twenty to life if Cordi catches wind of the kill kit in Tate’s trunk or starts wondering where Tate disappears to all the time. Fine then, Tate decides, I’ll just take a break. How hard could it be?

Very hard, in fact. When all of this leads to Tate “accidentally on purpose” killing one of their coworkers, things escalate beyond even what Nico can seem to fix.

But for the first time in her life, Tate realizes she has someone she wants to protect. . . and it just might get them both killed.

Love Kills is a dark romance intended for an adult audience.

Tropes

• (one sided) Enemies to lovers
• Freak for freak
• Is it cool to use your victim’s funeral as a first date?
• Office romance