I enjoyed the formatting of this book. Getting a look at the characters lives in reverse was very interesting. I enjoyed learning about the couple and the twist but this was not my favorite Peter swanson book.

Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC of Kill Your Darlings. Unfortunately, this was a miss for me. The story was engaging, the characters interesting but the formatting of the story was not to my liking and ultimately colored my feelings on the novel.

Peter Swanson is always an auto-read for me and will continue to be so, but this one was not my favorite.

i really wasn’t a huge fan of this book. maybe it wasn’t for me, but it just didn’t feel like a thriller. like, wendy and thom just. kind of being miserable but still being written as though they love eachother?? it felt like the writing clashed with the actual story. i don’t know about others, but it felt like pulling teeth to get through because it didn’t feel like a thriller at all. it felt slow and it really was hard to relate to either character.

slow character study in reverse order. a falling out of love story that begins with the out and ends with the love, almost like a traditional romance but very much not. strong thriller chunk. 5 stars. tysm for the arc.

Kill Your Darlings was a solid read for me and I enjoyed reading their lives in reverse. Thank you NetGalley and William Marrow for this advanced readers copy in exchange for my honest review.

Kill Your Darlings
by Peter Swanson
Pub Date: June 10, 2025
Thanks to the author, William Morrow and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
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.
Peter Swanson is one of my favorite authors' even if this may not be one of my favorite books.
This is a tale about the DEMISE of a love story, so fittingly, Peter Swanson has decided to tell it, beginning with the end. The story opens in the year 2023, and is told in reverse until the year 1982, when Thom and Wendy, who share a birthday, met at the age of fourteen.

We learn about the moments that defined their lives-and the SECRET that binds them together forever.

And, when Wendy decides that “till death do us part” seems too far off in the future, she may have to give it a nudge.

This is a SLOW BURN 🔥 character study of a marriage, which I found quite depressing, I started to become more intrigued by Wendy-as Peter Swanson always writes strong, cunning, capable women, and she is no exception.

The story IS clever, and as we are given more puzzle pieces to explain what happened in Chapter one, it becomes more interesting BUT nothing revealed after that had the same WOW factor as a good twist that comes later on in a story which is told chronologically. I read the last chapter twice to get the full meaning.
4 stars

Who doesn't love a story that starts at the end and then slowly goes back piece by piece to unwind the crimes that have taken place.

Another great one by Peter Swanson - granted not my favorite of his but solid book regardless. There were some pieces that took a some reading to figure out what was going on but that is the way the book was written. you aren't supposed to know truly what is going on until the end.

Peter Swanson has such a talent with telling stories. He is on my ‘must read everything by this author’ list. I loved this story but I felt like there were a few loose ends at the ending.

I really didn't care for this book, which is a real shame because I've loved the other novels I've read by Swanson. Telling the story in reverse was a unique take that I did like. There was a twist at the end that I would applaud, but other that, I really struggled to get through Kill Your Darlings.

I enjoyed this book but I was expecting a surprise of some kind to be revealed, I'm not sure why she did what she did to the current husband. But still an enjoyable read.

This was SO freaking good! I loved the backwards timeline and often wished I had a print copy to go back and forth with. I will definitely be buying a copy when the book releases. Thom & Wendy are "great" as a couple and I loved all the Easter eggs throughout the book. And that ending!!!!! I audibly gasped. Definitely my first 5-star thriller read of 2025.

I love Peter Swanson’s novels but this was not a favorite for me. An intriguing setup and premise but the characterization fell flat for me.

I am a new Peter Swanson fan. I loved how this story worked backwards. It felt like the ending was given away by other parts of the story though. I really enjoyed this book though. A quick read.

I’m a big Peter Swanson fan and even though this was not my favorite of his, I still enjoyed it! Written chronologically backward made me have to go back to the beginning once I finished, to pick up on the clues he had given us in the first chapter, which is always fun. Because of the way it’s written, and each chapter is a different year from the past, it’s less of a thriller and more of a twisty, “how did we get here?” plot. Thank you to William Marrow for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. #netgalley

I love Peter Swanson, and this book did not disappoint. I loved the way he told the story in reverse order. Though it wasn’t a jaw dropping ending, it was a good one.

Thanks to Net Galley, Harper Collins, and my favorite author Peter Swanson for an ARC of this book

Peter Swanson consistently writes dark, creative thrillers, and this is one of his best yet. Loved the premise where the murder happens early on in the story and time goes backwards to when the main characters first meet as teens.

Peter Swanson is an author I will always pick up the latest book from. I followed Lily Kitner and now I am invested in the marriage of Thom and Wendy Graves. The story is told through alternating viewpoints of Thom and Wendy, which was interesting. It is made very clear early on that Wendy wants to murder Thom. The story is about the motive and what happened in their relationship for her to think this is necessary.
I enjoyed every flashback (especially Wendy's) and some of the cold calculations she made throughout her life. She and Thom seem like a perfect fit, until they aren't anymore.
You can never know what actually goes on inside a marriage, but a first-person narrative fiction book can make it seem otherwise. Big fan, Peter Swanson. You write about bad people so well.

Kill Your Darlings is written chronologically....backwards! An interesting choice for sure. The strange thing about this format is you feel like you already know what happened in some ways and the most climactic part of the book came toward the beginning. I didn't particularly connect with or like our main characters. They were both a bit dull and predictable---not Peter Swanson's best.

Plot: Thom & Wendy have a clandestine connection---they share the same birthday and were middle school sweethearts once upon a time. They found their way back to each other as adults and now share a dark secret that characterizes much of their relationship. Thom is an English professor and Wendy's a has-been poet---these two creative minds have practically planned their life out as if it were a novel. Their past secret haunts them both in different ways...what might it drive them to do?

I was intrigued to find out how this one would end. Indeed, the ending was one of the most satisfying parts! But there was a lot of fluff in the middle that was starting to bore me a bit. I could not get out of my head connecting our MC, Wendy, with Wendy from Ozark. Funny enough, I actually feel there were some similarities. She seemed to wear the pants in her relationship and was ruthlessly cutthroat but with a middle-aged mom smile. Thom, on the other hand, was like an aimless, lost puppy. He seemed to be more decisive as a middle schooler than as an adult. Their relationship was very strange and the more you learned about them, the less it made sense. This book wasn't all I hoped for, but still a mildly entertaining mystery!

Thank you so much to William Morrow, Peter Swanson, and NetGalley for the ARC of Kill Your Darlings!

Kill Your Darlings is the fourth book I’ve read by this author, and while it wasn’t a new favorite, it was a quick read and what I would call a popcorn thriller. It’s a story told in reverse, opening with a chapter that grips readers and keeps those pages turning. We follow Wendy and Thom, a married couple with a dark secret. As the story progresses towards the early years of their relationship, readers come to understand more about who they are and what they did.

Like I said earlier, this was a quick read with a unique story-telling style. I didn’t find either of the main characters to be that interesting or memorable, and the ending was underwhelming. I was hoping for a bigger shock factor and maybe another chapter that tied in the present day. Overall a fun read, but not one that I would recommend widely.

Kill Your Darlings is an intriguing, twisted love story with layered, unreliable characters. Swanson has a talent for slow reveals and weaving the story together with intricate details. This book would be great for a book club.

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow the advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review.
#NetGalley #KillYourDarlings