Published 14th January 2025 by Wildfire.
From the cover of the book:
Hazel and Fox are an ordinary married couple with a baby. Except for one small thing: they're ex-serial killers.They had it all. An enviable London lifestyle, five-star travels, and plenty of bad men to kill. Not many power couples know how to get away with murder.
Then Hazel fell pregnant and they gave it all up for life in the suburbs; dinner parties instead of body disposal.
But recently Hazel has started to feel that itch again. When she kills someone behind Fox's back and brings the police to their door, she must do anything she can to protect her family.
This could save their marriage - unless it kills them first.
***********
Golden couple, Hazel and Fox are living the good life in leafy Berkshire with their young daughter Bibi. As Fox heads into London to follow a high-flying career in finance, leaving artist Hazel at home to fulfil the role of yummy mummy, you would not think there was anything to mark them out among their equally affluent neighbours... but you would be wrong.
For Hazel and Fox were once successful serial killers, haunting the glamorous locations where Europe's elite gathered, on a crusade to rid the world of 'bad men'. It was a lifestyle they enjoyed to the max, but all that changed when Hazel fell pregnant. Giving everything up to become parents seemed the obvious choice, but swapping a life of living on the edge for the routine of domestic felicity is beginning to pall, despite the overwhelming love they feel for Bibi - especially for Hazel.
When Hazel breaks their non-killing pact by stabbing a man who attacks her when she is out jogging, she is unable to tell Fox what she has done. She is sure she can fix this without his help, but the strain begins to tell on their marriage. It does not help that Fox has secrets of his own that he is desperate to keep from Hazel...
A Serial Killer's Guide to Marriage is an absolutely glorious ride of a thriller, that mixes fast-paced plot and biting humour to produce a book that demands to be read in a single sitting - which is exactly what I did!
The story unfurls in narratives from married couple Hazel and Fox as they gamely try to follow the path of reformed serial killers, by masquerading as an aspirational couple with a young daughter in staid suburbia. These narratives are periodically broken up by flash-backs to their former lives, before and after their meeting, to slickly fill in all the backstory you need. It is clear from the outset that Hazel is struggling with this life, even though she adores her daughter, and is missing the thrills that fired her artistic soul. Unable to paint, the frustration within her threatens to burst free - which it eventually does in a violent outburst that drives the delicious story.
Mackay weaves a intricate plot that has Hazel scrambling to keep her secret from Fox, while raging against the strictures of her boring life. Hazel's solution to the mess she is in is to commit to an original plan to keep herself and her family safe from the consequences of her actions - actions made even more complicated by a choice she does not realise is a dangerous one until it is too late. As the twists and turns play out, Mackay reveals that things are not quite as rosy as they appear to be for Fox either - his past life as part of a dysfunctional American high-society family is about to derail his carefully curated existence. He has secrets he is keeping from Hazel in turn, and their marriage goes into freefall as the cracks begin to show in their relationship. Soon they are eyeing each other with suspicion, fuelled by misunderstandings - not a good place to be when you are both consummate killers...
This was enormous fun. The combination of seductive serial killer caper and tense domestic drama is perfectly pitched, with just the right amount of back story to explain the motivation of the characters. This is definitely going to be kill-or-cure, and Mackay keeps you dangling about what the outcome will be, before pulling off the kind of sexy ending that has you punching the air with glee. She does an excellent job echoing her themes of violence against women, killer instinct, family, and justice throughout too.
I loved it, and am really looking forward to the promised TV drama!
A Serial Killer's Guide to Marriage is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to Wildfire for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review.
About the author:
Her debut novel Killing It was the First Runner Up in Richard and Judy's Search for a Bestseller competition and First Runner Up for the Comedy Women In Print prize.
sia lives in London with her husband, four young children and two dogs - she never succeeds in calling any of them by the right name. She is always very very tired.
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