a final rose for the final girl

Jamie Prescott is working on her dissertation, a study of how the female romantic leads in rom coms have a lot in common with the female leads in horror movies. As a film student, she’s watched hundreds of hours of each, and she loves them both. And she’s been working hard on her dissertation, so she’s definitely earned a night out with her best friend Laurie.

Tired of swiping on apps, they decide to try a night of speed dating. There will be ten men and ten women, ten minutes for each date. They have to lock up their phones and bags at the coat check room, but there is a bar, so they get some drinks and meet the other women before the dating starts.

The first few men Jamie meet are nice enough, but there is no chemistry. And then she meets John, who is more like the men she generally dates and who also likes movies. But it’s the next guy, Wes, that she has true chemistry with. After a break, she sits back down to another man, and after the lights blink off for a second and come back on, she realizes that the man sitting across from her has been killed. In an instant, someone had cut his throat, and Jamie realized that she wasn’t sitting in a rom com. She was in a slasher film, and so was everyone else in the room.

Jamie’s knowledge of horror films means that she knows the rules of the genre, what to do to survive to the end of the movie. Rules like don’t split up and stay hidden for longer than you think you should helps keep them safe for a while. But without phones or any way to communicate with the outside world, the speed daters are stuck inside a club with a crazed killer. There are dark hallways and dead ends, and when Jamie finally comes face to face with the killer, she realizes he is wearing a face mask. It’s a ski mask, pink, with a zipper across the mouth. But the really disturbing part is that the eye holes are shaped like hearts.

And then Jamie discovers a big heart that was left for her on the center of the dance floor, and she knows that she’s not starring in a slasher flick. She’s in a rom com. But in this one, if she doesn’t fall in love with the right guy, then she might not survive it, along with everyone else in the room. Jamie doesn’t know which of her speed dates is the one who decided she was the one for him. But she will have to figure it out in time, or everyone except him will be dead.

How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates is a comedic horror book about dating. There are some sweet romantic moments. There are some moments of friendship. There are some moments of heat. And there is a lot of blood. This is truly a slasher book, with brutal murders in a locked-room setting. The characters are interesting and left me guessing way too long about who was behind all the violence, making the surprises pop. I thought this was a clever mash-up of romance and horror, but there was more gore than I originally expected. When I adjusted my expectations, I was okay and went all in with the book, and it was one hell of a read.

Egalleys for How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates were provided by Gallery Books through NetGalley, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.