Matchmaking for Psychopaths - Hardcover

Coryell, Tasha

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593640306 ISBN 13: 9780593640302

Verlag: Berkley, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

Love is a dangerous game when your clients are killers…from the bestselling author behind Love Letters to a Serial Killer.

When Lexie's fiancé runs off with her so-called best friend on her birthday, her carefully crafted fairy-tale life shatters. Having survived horrors in her past, she was determined to finally get her happily-ever-after—and she's not giving up yet.

To distract herself, Lexie throws herself into her unusual job: matchmaking psychopaths (a specialty her clients are blissfully unaware of). But the loneliness is crushing. So when a gorgeous, overprotective new client named Aidan insists they're soulmates, and another intriguing client, Rebecca, seems perfect to fill the best-friend-shaped hole in her life, Lexie can't help but find the attention comforting—despite her own professional boundaries.

Then a human heart appears on Lexie's doorstep. As more threatening packages arrive and her fiancé mysteriously disappears, she must confront a terrifying question: did she inadvertently match herself with a killer? Between Aidan's claims that her fiancé will never return, Rebecca's growing presence in her life, and her own dark past resurfacing, Lexie's matchmaker instincts are being tested like never before.

Because someone is determined to ensure her story ends with a funeral.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Tasha Coryell lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with her husband and son. She holds an MFA and PhD from the University of Alabama. She is the author of Love Letters to a Serial Killer, and her stories, essays, and poems have been featured in a multitude of journals. In her free time, Tasha can be found running, cross-stitching, and watching copious amounts of television

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1.

Four months earlier

Molly and Noah were already seated at the table when I arrived at the restaurant. I was underwhelmed by the presentation. There were no gifts waiting, no bouquet of flowers, nothing to indicate that we were celebrating my birthday rather than having an ordinary meal.

I swallowed my disappointment as I pulled out a chair and joined them.

"Oh wow," I said. "My two favorite people. What are we drinking tonight?"

The setting was so mediocre that I decided it was a fake-out before the surprise party that I'd spent the previous two months hinting to my fiancé, Noah, that I wanted.

"I'd love a surprise party," I told him while we stood in the corner at a housewarming for one of his friends.

"Maybe you'll throw me a surprise party," I whispered into his ear while we made love.

"I told Noah that I want a surprise party," I texted his mom.

My favorite birthday party ever-my last real party-had been a surprise. I was turning ten, and I came home from school to find the living room full of people. None of them were other kids. I didn't care. I didn't have any friends my own age anyway. I claimed that I preferred the company of adults. "Kids are stupid," I used to say to my parents, and the three of us would laugh and laugh. There was no better feeling than entertaining them like that.

What I couldn't admit was that I felt excluded. The other girls were enrolled in dance lessons, soccer, and horseback riding, and developed languages that I was unable to speak. They didn't care about the films that I'd watched over the weekend or the chapter books that I'd completed. My parents didn't seem to understand that children's extracurriculars existed, and wouldn't have been able to afford them if they had understood. "What could be better than the three of us?" they said, which was a statement that I wanted to be true.

My tenth birthday fulfilled fantasies that I didn't even know I'd had. Instead of one big cake with cursive icing spelling out Happy Birthday, Lexie, there were trays of exquisitely decorated petits fours and a tower of cocktail shrimp. Someone gave me a flute of champagne, and thought it was hilarious when I took a sip and grimaced before setting it down. The air grew smoky with a scent that, years later, I would realize was marijuana. We pushed the couches out of the way to make a dance floor, and I grew lightheaded as I spun in circles, the guests cheering my name. I was so ecstatic that I failed to notice the lack of presents. I ended the evening with the assumptions that all adult parties were like that and that age ten was going to be the best year ever. I was horrendously wrong on both counts.

When I woke on the morning of my thirtieth birthday to find on my bedside table a note from Noah that said See you tonight @ Antonio's 7pm in Noah's messy doctor's scrawl, I took it as confirmation that the surprise party was happening as requested. I looked up Antonio's online and saw that they had a private room available for rent. I scrolled through photos of the space, building in my brain a vision of the night to come. Couples were always throwing each other elaborate theme parties on my favorite reality shows-gatherings with themes like "cowboy," "luau," or "1920s murder mystery," filled with dozens of the friends who served as extras in their lives. That was the kind of thing that I was envisioning, except the theme was "my parents' house twenty years ago." Before everything went wrong.

I spent the day primping. I got a facial, followed by a manicure and a blowout.

"It's my birthday," I told the aesthetician.

"It's my birthday," I repeated to the nail tech.

"It's my birthday," I informed the hair stylist.

It was the kind of thing that was allowed only one day of the year, and I was going to take advantage of it.

At home, I opened a bottle of champagne and practiced making surprised faces in the mirror.

Oh my gosh, what a surprise!

A surprise party?! I had no idea!

I can't believe my fiancé is so good at keeping secrets!

By the time I put on the sparkly purple dress that my best friend, Molly, had helped me pick out, I was significantly inebriated. I took selfies against the wall of my town house, with the best lighting, and ordered an Uber to come pick me up, because if Noah's party for me would be anything like the ones that I'd seen on TV, there was no way that I would be in any state to drive later in the evening.

When I'd arrived at the restaurant, I was surprised when the host led me past the private room, which was dark and empty, but I wasn't surprised to see Molly sitting next to Noah at the table. I'd known for weeks that she was in on the secret. On a couple of separate occasions, I'd caught Noah texting her when I'd peeked over his shoulder. Molly and Noah had conspired together before-she was the one who had told him my ring size and preferred stone cut before he'd proposed-so when I saw the messages, I knew something good was in the works.

Then, two weeks prior to the dinner, Molly had invited me to the mall. She'd ordered a dress online that turned out to be too small, and rather than mailing it back, she decided it would be easier to return it to the store directly.

"It would be a good opportunity to buy a dress for your birthday," she said, with a wink.

That was the kind of friendship that Molly and I had-we existed together. If I wanted an afternoon coffee as a pick-me-up, she swung by and we went to Starbucks. If Noah had a late shift at the hospital, Molly came over with a pizza and we watched reality television. Having Molly was what I'd imagined having a sister would've been like, had my mother ever listened to my requests for a sibling.

Molly was the first friend I'd ever had who provided the kind of bond that I'd witnessed in movies. I'd had acquaintances, of course. People I saw at work or the gym. We said hello to one another and exchanged pleasantries, but we didn't really know one another. It was like there was some invisible fence that everyone had the access code to except for me. I blamed my mother. She hadn't been close with anyone either, except for my father, and that had ended catastrophically.

Things with Molly were different. She was fun and pretty and, most important, she liked me. She made me want to tell her things, real things, not the mindless chatter I gave other people.

When she picked up the sparkly purple dress and said, "This would be perfect for your birthday," I listened between the lines to hear This would be perfect for your surprise party.

That was why I was certain that the table at the restaurant was the beginning of the night rather than the end. Surely there was something more than a simple birthday dinner afoot. If about nothing else, I was right about that.

As I approached the table, Noah's gaze drifted in the direction of my cleavage. I did have nice breasts, an attribute that I didn't take for granted.

"You look good," he said.

As a medical resident, Noah spent a lot of hours at the hospital, which meant that he had to tend to our relationship in other ways. He gave frequent compliments, had a standing weekly flower delivery, and knew my favorite meal at all our regular take-out spots, so that I wasn't stuck cooking for myself every single night. Molly sometimes asked me if I was lonely spending so much time by myself, but I didn't mind. After all that time alone in my youth, being with others too much could be overwhelming.

"Thanks," I said.

I noticed that Molly had also donned a sparkly dress, which seemed a little tacky considering that she'd helped me pick out my outfit for the evening. Molly could be like that sometimes, stepping into other people's spotlights when given the chance. I knew it was because she was...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Berkley
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593640306
• ISBN 13: 9780593640302
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 326
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: BERKLEY; https://www.penguin.com/?s=BERKLEY; ; Unit 2 Limavady Business Park; Limavady; County Londonderry; BT49 0HR; Vereinigtes Königreich
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar