9 Romantic Mystery Thrillers You Should Read During Romance Awareness Month
Love a little romance with your suspense? These thrillers bring the twists, the tension, and just enough romance to keep you rooting for more than just solving the mystery. Pick up one of these before the end of Romance Awareness Month, or just to swoon over in general.
The Golden Girls meets Bonnie and Clyde and Thelma and Louise in this thrilling novel about two elderly women who go on the run to cover up a double murder they committed four decades ago.
Ida and Jean got away with murder. Settling into their golden years in late ’90s Rockaway, New York, Ida and Jean’s biggest problems are HOA squabbles, grown kids who don’t visit enough, and staying in the closet as a lesbian couple for fear of being ostracized. But when the electrical lines in their backyard need replacing, the women know that digging up the ground will unearth their long-held secret: the bodies of their late husbands buried under the rosebushes.
After their attempts to keep the electrical company from digging take a deadly turn, the lovers go on the run, launched into a cross-country adventure—with their cat, Frankie, in tow. To escape the law, they’ll need to outwit quirky midwestern locals, mend frayed relationships with their adult children, and shake off the detective that’s hot on their trail. But if Ida and Jean can pull it off, they’ll find their freedom in the place that has always represented their best shot at coming out and finally living their authentic lives together: San Francisco, California.
True crime podcaster Ella Takeda is a sucker for a good mystery. She has an uncanny knack for pinpointing killers … until she gets it wrong. Turns out that identifying an innocent man as the Canceled Killer—a serial murderer who targets high-profile fraudsters—is cause for immediate backlash.
Now she’s returned to her small Midwest town, but the Canceled Killer may not be done with her yet. Ella has a terrible suspicion she’s his next target … and worse, she might be dating him. Could it be Jude, the sexy, cheese-loving nerd her mom is convinced she’s going to marry? Or Aaron, the hot Chicago detective who’s the walking embodiment of every Swipe Right fantasy? And finally, there’s Mateo—a Hollywood stunt double who’s got allll the right moves.
Trusting guys is hard enough, especially when one wants her dead. Will she be able to unmask the killer before she becomes the next victim?
A brash bounty hunter and an energetic elementary school teacher become the murder-solving team no one asked for–but they’re stuck together, come hell or high tide, until a killer is found in this enemies-to-lovers spicy rom-com featuring a brand-new bonus novella from Tessa Bailey, #1 New York Times bestselling author of It Happened One Summer.
It was supposed to be a relaxing vacation in sweet, sunny Cape Cod–just Taylor Bassey and her beloved brother–but discovering a corpse in their rental house has really thrown a wrench into their tanning schedule. Now a rude, crude bounty hunter has arrived on the back of his motorcycle to catch the killer and refuses to believe Taylor can be helpful, despite the countless hours she’s spent listening to true crime podcasts. Not to mention her fulfilling teaching career of wrangling second graders.
Myles Sumner is only there to do a job, not babysit an amateur sleuth. Although…it is becoming less and less of a hardship to have Taylor around. Sure, she’s stubborn, distracting and can’t stay out of harm’s way. She’s also brave and beautiful and reminds him of home. In other words, the insatiable hunger and protectiveness she’s awakening is a threat to his peace of mind. Before Myles sinks any deeper into this dangerous attraction, he needs to solve the murder and get back on the road. Only now there are two threats–and the biggest one is to his heart.
The exclusive bonus novella, My Killer Role, gives readers the romance between fan favorite characters Jude and Dante from My Killer Vacation.
You can hide in the farthest reaches of the deepest hell, and I will still drag you out. Even the devil can’t save you from me.
Cape Carnage is a seaside town of colorful houses, quirky shops, and an unusually high body count. With tourists comes trouble, and Harper Starling won’t let anyone ruin her picture-perfect home. A skilled gardener with killer instincts, Harper protects her sanctuary–and her aging mentor with a fading memory–at any cost. Troublesome tourists don’t check out of Carnage. They compost beneath Harper’s award-winning flowerbeds.
But Nolan Rhodes isn’t your average tourist. Devilishly handsome, disarmingly charming, and skilled with a blade, Nolan is relentless in the pursuit of revenge. On every anniversary of the hit-and-run accident that fractured his life, Nolan slays another target. And he’s saved the best for last: the undeniably beautiful Harper Starling. The problem? Harper isn’t the monster he expected. And she won’t go down without a fight.
When an amateur true crime investigator comes to Cape Carnage on the trail of a long-lost serial killer, Harper and Nolan strike an uneasy truce. If Nolan helps Harper protect her town, she’ll keep quiet about his hunting habits . . . for now. But their alliance soon spirals into obsession, one that threatens to shatter every secret in Carnage–including their fragile love.
Tourist Season is a darkly funny, slow burn, enemies-to-lovers romance where destruction and desire are balanced on the edge of a blade—and where love is the most dangerous battleground of all.
She hunts killers. He is one. Opposites attract has never been so literal.
Crime journalist Oakley Novak has built her career exposing Boston’s darkest secrets, but she never expected a serial killer to turn the tables and stalk her.
Xander Rhodes spent weeks watching her through hidden cameras, captivated by her sharp mind and relentless drive, until she catches him red-handed and, instead of running, challenges him with a glare that could melt steel.
Xander’s either found his soulmate or lost his damn mind. Probably both.
When Oakley recruits him for her revenge plan against the man who murdered her parents, their partnership shatters every rule of Xander’s secret murder society.
Now they’re being hunted by both sides—the law and the shadows—while racing against time to take down the untouchable enemy who took everything from her.
If you’re obsessed with dark romance laced with wicked humor, serial killers with a knack for banter, and heroines who wield wit as sharply as weapons, this sinful story will carve its way into your soul.
When undercover DEA agent Carter enters the picture, Sloan’s surprised to feel an immediate attraction between them, despite knowing that if Asa finds out, he will kill him. And Asa has always been a step ahead of everyone in his life, including Sloan. No one has ever gotten in his way.
No one except Carter.
Together, Sloan and Carter must find a way out before it’s too late…
But none of Ophelia’s obsessive scrolling on wedding forums can prepare her for the nightmare of planning her own. Why is her mother-in-law going crazy over every detail? Why is Luke’s family so eager to host the wedding in their vineyard’s ancient chapel? And what exactly will Ophelia have to sacrifice if she and her mother both hope to survive her special day?
Shot through with wicked humor, pitch-black horror, and unexpected romance, Until Death is a deliciously dark and funny send-up of the wedding industrial complex—and a mother-daughter story unlike any you’ve read before.
The chilling story of the abduction of two teenagers, their escape, and the dark secrets that, years later, bring them back to the scene of the crime.
It’s senior-year spring break, and Noelle Meyer and Evan Sinclair have been kidnapped. Neither knows why they were chosen, only that they share a tragic past: Evan’s father got away with killing Noelle’s mother, effectively ruining her family when the death was ruled an accident.
Despite the connection that should have made them enemies, the teens instead unite to face their other common denominator–their abductors. Noelle and Evan survive one sadistic circumstance after another, eventually making a harrowing escape. But every happy ending comes at a price…
Years later, Evan, now a private investigator, revisits the crime when he learns it may be ongoing. He reaches out to Noelle for help, and they discover that the answers lie with a man known only as the Collector. To close their case and solve the ones that followed, Noelle and Evan must unmask this mysterious spectator–the only man who knows enough secrets to take their captors down.
Knives Out gets a holiday rom-com twist in this rivals-to-lovers romance-mystery from New York Times bestselling author Ally Carter.
The bridge is out. The phones are down. And the most famous mystery writer in the world just disappeared out of a locked room two days before Christmas.
Meet Maggie Chase and Ethan Wyatt:
She’s the new Queen of the Cozy Mystery.
He’s Mr. Big-time Thriller Guy.
She hates his guts.
He thinks her name is Marcie (no matter how many times she’s told him otherwise.)
But when they both accept a cryptic invitation to attend a Christmas house party at the English estate of a reclusive fan, neither is expecting their host to be the most powerful author in the world: Eleanor Ashley, the Duchess of Death herself.
That night, the weather turns, and the next morning Eleanor is gone.
She vanished from a locked room, and Maggie has to wonder: Is Eleanor in danger? Or is it all some kind of test? Is Ethan the competition? Or is he the only person in that snowbound mansion she can trust?
As the snow gets deeper and the stakes get higher, every clue will bring Maggie and Ethan closer to the truth–and each other. Because, this Christmas, these two rivals are going to have to become allies (and maybe more) if they have any hope of saving Eleanor.
Assuming they don’t kill each other first.
The laugh out loud holiday “romystery” that you’ve been waiting for!
