Description

“Authors and book tours, stalkers and deadlines, horrid men and ice cold revenge . . . Murder Your Darlings will have you cracking up while you’re checking under your bed.”—Karin Slaughter, New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author

For every woman who’s ever fallen for a bad man comes a hilarious and eviscerating tale of love, loss, and deadlines from New York Times bestselling author Jenna Blum.

Known for such brilliant historical novels as Those Who Save Us and The Lost Family, A Mighty Blaze co-founder and New York Times bestselling author Jenna Blum now offers a contemporary, suspenseful novel about love, loss, and revenge in the world of books.

Simone “Sam” Vetiver is a mid-career novelist finishing a lukewarm publicity tour while facing a deadline for a new book on which she’s totally blocked. Recently divorced, Sam is worrying where her life is going when she receives glowing fan mail from stratospherically successful author William Corwyn, renowned for his female-centric novels. When William and Sam meet and his literary sympathy is as intense as their chemistry, both writers think they’ve found The One.

But as in their own novels, things between Sam and William are not what they seem. William has multiple stalkers, including a scarily persistent one named The Rabbit. He lives on a remote Maine island, where his writer life resembles The Shining. And when writers turn up dead, including from The Darlings support group William runs, Sam has to ask: Is it The Rabbit—William’s #1 Stalker? Another woman scorned? Can William be everything he seems?

Narrated by Sam, William, and The Rabbit, Murder Your Darlings is a wickedly witty look at today’s literary landscape and down-the-rabbit-hole tale of how far people will go for love.

About the author(s)

Jenna Blum is the New York Times and # 1 internationally bestselling author of novels Those Who Save Us, The Stormchasers, and The Lost Family; memoir Woodrow on the Bench; audiocourse “The Author at Work: The Art of Writing Fiction” and original podcast The Key of Love. Jenna is CEO and Co-Founder of online author interview platform A Mighty Blaze and one of Oprah.com readers’ Top 30 Women Writers. Jenna earned her MA in Creative Writing at Boston University and has taught workshops for Boston University, Grub Street Writers, A Mighty Blaze, and numerous other institutions for over 25 years. She interviewed Holocaust survivors for Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and is a professional public speaker, traveling nationally and internationally to speak about her work. Jenna is based in Boston. For more about Jenna, please visit www.jennablum.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, and Substack.  

Reviews

"In a spicy romantic suspense novel that moves among the perspectives of three characters—Sam, William, and the Rabbit—Blum follows Sam as she loses herself in a maze of desire littered with the dreams and bodies of other women writers. To escape, she must form unlikely alliances that bring her back to a self and path she lost. Smart and darkly funny, Blum’s novel offers a biting commentary on romance, revenge, and the ways writers can 'get inside us…and change us.' A smart, sexy thriller that disturbs as it satisfies." — Kirkus Reviews

“Authors and book tours, stalkers and deadlines, horrid men and ice cold revenge . . . Murder Your Darlings will have you cracking up while you’re checking under your bed.” — Karin Slaughter, New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author

"Is it wrong to call a serial killer novel fun? Because Murder Your Darlings is great fun—a delicious satire of the writing life as well as a genuinely gripping thriller." — Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of The Oligarch's Daughter

"I have loved every single one of Jenna Blum's novels but Murder Your Darlings hits it out of the park. By turns hilarious and terrifying, this brilliant satire of the literary world gets at essential truths about the misogyny and sexism that permeate our culture, perfectly laying bare the experience of, well, being a female human in our flawed country. I loved it and quite literally could not put it down." — Joanna Rakoff, internationally bestselling author of My Salinger Year

"Bestseller Blum’s diabolically clever first thriller is literally fireworks on the page. An absolutely killer tale of love, publishing (and desperate-to-publish writers); lusty sex, murder and hopeless desire—both for fame and for what feeds our hearts, it’s also hilarious funny, with bolts-from-the-blue surprises on every paragraph. Catnip for readers and essential for anyone who’s ever gleefully fantasized about revenge. To say I adored this would be an understatement." — Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and Days of Wonder

“Deftly executed, deeply moving, and full of heart, Jenna Blum’s The Lost Family is an evocative look at the legacy of war and how it impacts one memorable family.” — Jami Attenberg, bestselling author of The Middlesteins, on The Lost Family

“Blum avoids the sap of happy endings and easy resolutions in this perfect encapsulation of the changing times and turbulence of mid- and late-20th-century America.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) on The Lost Family

“Blum plumbs the depths of loss and love in this exquisite page-turner.” — People on The Lost Family

“When I say Jenna Blum’s Woodrow on the Bench wrecked me and that I’m now sobbing and eating all the chocolate, I mean it in the best way possible.” — Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Wish You Were Here, on Woodrow on the Bench

"The brilliance of dogs shines brightest when their complexity is reduced to its simplest form: be there for me; love me. In Jenna Blum’s wonderful, moving memoir, the depth of this simplicity is made clear by the author's relationship with the noble, lovable Woodrow, an old dog with a soul so big, it spills over and changes everyone he touches. Woodrow on the Bench is a 'girl and her dog' story for the ages!” — Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain, on Woodrow on the Bench

“Wise, wrenching, and devastatingly beautiful. . . . This book is a gem. Read it. You’ll love it and you’ll love Woodrow, and you’ll glimpse love in all its majesty.” — Chris Bohjalian, New York Times bestselling author of The Lioness, on Woodrow on the Bench

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