Kill Your Darlings

A Stylist Unmissable Summer Thriller

By: Peter Swanson

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Hardcover | 3 July 2025

At a Glance

Hardcover
288 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
23.4 x 15.3

Hardcover

$48.75

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From the New York Times bestselling author of The Kind Worth Killing and Eight Perfect Murders comes an inventive, utterly propulsive murder-mystery in reverse, tracing a marriage back in time to uncover the dark secret at its heart.

Thom and Wendy Graves have been married for over twenty-five years. They live in a beautiful Victorian on the north shore of Massachusetts. Wendy is a published poet and Thom teaches English literature at a nearby university. Their son, Jason, is all grown up. All is well...except that Wendy wants to murder her husband.

What happens next has everything to do with what happened before. The story of Wendy and Thom's marriage is told in reverse, moving backward through time to witness key moments from the couple's lives-their fiftieth birthday party, buying their home, Jason's birth, the mysterious death of a work colleague-all painting a portrait of a marriage defined by a single terrible act they plotted together many years ago.

Eventually we learn the details of what Thom and Wendy did in their early twenties, a secret that has kept them bound together through the length of their marriage. But its power over them is fraying, and each of them begins to wonder if they would be better off making sure their spouse carries their secrets to the grave.

Industry Reviews

"""An ingenious twist on a noir classic, about the hell that awaits co-conspirators Wendy and Thom after they become a 'happy' married couple. Swanson's decision to move swiftly backward in time over 40-plus years is surprisingly suspenseful. I raced through the pages, anxious to learn the couple's last deadly secret -- and I was not disappointed."" - Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of Prom Mom

""A feat of structural magnificence-- the instant I turned the final page, I flipped straight back to the start to put it all together again. Exhilarating and exceptionally clever, Kill Your Darlings zings with a singular sense of tension. Peter Swanson writes with the lyrical acuity of a literary master."" - Danya Kukafka, nationally bestselling author of Notes on an Execution

'I absolutely loved it. What a deliciously dark book.' - John Marrs

'An incredible tour de force of structure and character and plot - Peter Swanson is a flat out genius. Kill Your Darlings' deeply psychological underpinnings will have you holding your breath as you turn the pages. Both crushingly inevitable and completely haunting, I honestly applauded at the ending.' - Hank Phillippi Ryan"

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