Welcome to Cape Carnage! Visit Once, Stay Forever.
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.
Tropes:
Small-town romance
Fish out of water
Grumpy/grumpy
Forced proximity
He falls first
Touch her/him and die
Groveling
Content & Trigger Warnings
As much as Tourist Season is a dark romantic comedy and will hopefully make you laugh through the madness, it’s still dark! Please read responsibly.
- Woodchippers
- Creative use of bird feeders
- Eyeballs and also eye sockets this time. Ugh. I know. If you’ve been with me for a while, I think we’ve both resigned ourselves to this one for the foreseeable future (pun intended)
- Lawn aerators
- Scrapbooking, but make it murdery
- Gardening, but make that murdery too
- Stalking and voyeurism
- Breaking and entering, including theft
- References to physical and psychological torture
- Drowning
- Hamburgers. I’M SORRY. I didn’t think it was going to happen and then it just … happened
- Birds that enjoy human snacks
- Vehicular collisions
- A plethora of weapons, including axes, knives, guns, needles, chainsaws, garrotes, and three-hole punches
- Explicit language and blasphemy
- Murdery use of ropes
- Sexy use of ropes
- Medical settings and details, including trauma response activities, CPR, hospitals, and long-term recovery
- Explicit sexual content, including BDSM, brat/brat tamer kink, impact play, rough sex, adult toys, pain play, and mild knife play
- This is a story of two serial killers falling in love, so expect general murder and mayhem.
While normally my content warnings are delivered with a lighthearted hand, I want to express this one seriously: elderly loved one with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and early Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Caregiving responsibilities and challenges are also depicted. As a person who has lost multiple close family members to AD and who worked in the field of Alzheimer’s research for over a decade, I am deeply sensitive to the emotional turmoil caused by the loss of personhood due to dementia. I know how difficult it is to be a caregiver to someone with MCI/AD. While I hope to show the beautiful complexity of this elderly character, from his fear and confusion to his humor and resilience, please know that some readers might find this exploration of memory loss triggering. More detailed information that you might find helpful:
Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)—subtle changes in memory and thinking that may indicate a transition to other dementia conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease. The term may be used interchangeably with “early Alzheimer’s disease.”
Alzheimer’s disease (AD)—a progressive, degenerative neurological disease with symptoms such as memory loss, difficulty thinking, mood and behavioral changes, psychological challenges (paranoia, depression, hallucination), restlessness, and many others not listed here. It is divided into three primary phases: Mild, Moderate, and Severe. Though not explicitly stated in the story, and complicated by other medical conditions, the character in the book who has this illness exhibits symptoms of Mild to Moderate AD.
Dementia—an umbrella medical term for a number of distinct neurological conditions that represent the impairment of at least two brain functions. MCI and AD are classified as dementia conditions.
A portion of the royalties from the sale of this series will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Association (US) and Alzheimer Society of Canada.
