Publication Date: January 13, 2026
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.
Murder Your Darlings by Jenna Blum is a romantic thriller full of twists and turns.
There are multiple storylines with Simone (Sam) and William, the main characters who are both successful novelists, so why does he offer his help to assist her in getting over her writer’s block? Rabbit, a woman who first stalks William and then includes Sam in her focus, really ratchets up the thrill factor.
There are underlying currents throughout, and plenty of secrets and lies from some. Several characters are not who they seem, and William was a character I couldn’t connect with or like. He was a ladies’ man and always seemed to go after vulnerable women. He had a pattern that he tried to hide from others.
There are several steamy scenes, and it was how William seemed to exert control. There are hints and clues about what was currently going on and what might have happened in the past, but not to the extent of what was revealed. I knew there wouldn’t or couldn’t be a happy ending, but it unfolded much differently than I expected.
Murder Your Darlings as a title has several meanings, and the actions throughout had me turning the pages to see what would happen next.
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.
