This book started at near the end and went backwards, which I didn't realise until a few chapters in. I felt sympathy for the main character , but I di wonder why she didn't just leave Thom? It was interesting to see the relationship develop, but in reverse. There is a bit plot twist at the end , however, an epilogue would have been great to tell me what happens. I'll look forward to seeing the film once it's released.

I have read several other books by Peter Swanson and really enjoyed them. But kill your darlings just left me confused.
Thome and Wendy Graves have a great life, but the marriage is not totally an ideal one. They both have secrets which eventually something triggers in Wendy, and she kills him. The story is then told in reverse and first how they met and continues that fatal day.
Yes, I can say that this story is a unique tale and expertly done. But as I know the result it just didn’t work for me. I knew what was going to happen so the usual suspense and me wanting to turn the pages quickly to the next bit just wasn’t there for me and because of this I found the storyline to be very slow. I couldn’t really connect to the characters either. 2.5 stars from me.

Too many questions, too many plot holes and a weird timeline.
I didn’t love the writing and it was hard to read, didn’t find it thrilling. Couldn’t connect with the characters.

A clever telling with. The end at the beginning was a brilliant concept leading the reader to ponder what brought this death to occur. No spoilers! The story is told historically and presents a fascinating tale built through a series of events that are perfectly navigated.

A clever delivery and captivating read. Nicely paced and maintains the reader’s interest.

This isn’t the sort of book that I would normally read but I really enjoyed several aspects of it. Most eye-catching was the literary device of telling the story backwards. We start at the beginning with a few chapters describing how the protagonist Wendy kills her husband Thom and the rest of the book takes us back through their history so that we can begin to understand what brought them together and what led Wendy to despise him so much. This was cleverly done and the book deserves the praise it gets for adopting this approach.

On the downside the story is quite slow and has a lot of repetitive elements - Thom’s drinking and flirting as an irritant for example - and the reveal of the secrets that resulted in the couple being together in the first place is painfully slow. The veil is lifted every few chapters, but I did just want the author to get on with it and lay their cards on the table. I found that I could never read this for very long at a stretch. I dipped in and out and occasionally skimmed. It could have been a shorter, tighter piece of work and that would have made it more compelling. Telling the story backwards has some drawbacks as we always know what has happened and are simply delving backwards to understand why.

It's not a huge spoiler to reveal that when Wendy kills Thom it isn't her first foray into the world of murder. She isn't a psychopath and feels her actions are justified. I found her coldness- a total lack of any emotion or guilt in relation to her killings, to lack credibility and as a whole there seems to be very little development of Wendy as a character over the first half of the book (or the last half if you want to look at things chronologically) even though that spans 15 years, during which she must surely change as a person (her son grows up and leaves home, her relationship with Thom breaks down sufficiently that she wants to off him). That steadiness (not woodenness) did not ring true and would have been even more obvious if the action had played forwards instead.

Still a good story - just not worth so many pages. I am sure the forthcoming movie will do well. Three and a half stars from me. Rounded up because the ending made me smile.

Thank you to NetGalley for making an advance copy of this book available for review. The opinions expressed above are entirely my own, following a full read of the novel.

Told in reverse, *Kill Your Darlings* by Peter Swanson opens with Wendy killing her husband Thom and slowly works back through their troubled history. The backwards structure is clever and adds intrigue, gradually revealing the dark secrets that shaped their toxic marriage.

However, the pacing is a little slow at times, particularly around Thom’s drinking and the drawn-out mystery. Wendy’s cold, detached character lacks believable development, which weakens the emotional impact.

While not a gripping page-turner, it’s a smart and unconventional psychological thriller that will appeal to fans of slow burns. Looking forward to seeing how the film adaptation handles it. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This is the love story of Wendy and Thom, from their first kiss at the Exorcist steps in DC through to middle age together. It reveals the history of what they had to do to be together and what that did to them over time. The prsent day is interlaced with flashbacks to their childhood and when they reconnected.

This novel is told backwards, as the first chapter is the end of the story. We meet Wendy and Thom, once childhood sweethearts, now middle-aged academics. Not all is as it seems; their story harbours secrets. Wendy is growing concerned that in an inebriated state and with his eyes on younger women, Thom might begin to reveal the secrets. So she decides to take action. Bye-bye, Thom.

The construct of Kill Your Darlings is clever, but I did struggle a bit when, after a fabulous opening chapter, we went back to earlier days in their lives. While I feel this works, it’s not a fast-paced gripping thriller but more of an intelligent slow burn. This was my first Peter Swanson book, and I am looking forward to reading more of his work.

Thank you to Faber and Faber Ltd and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Wendy has money, a husband and a son, a house she loves and a life she's content with. It should be perfect - except her increasingly drunk husband keeps almost spilling a dark secret and she can't have that. So we move backwards in time to discover why Thom drinks and how these two got to where they ended up.

I love the idea of a story told in reverse, it sounds really cool but I'm not sure it really paid off for me personally. By knowing how the story ends, it took away all of the tension, all of the mystery. There was a brief part around halfway through concerning Thom's boss where it got good briefly, but we skipped backwards in time so fast that it lost it again.

I didn't really care for either main character. Thom was a drunk and a cheat, although he loved his wife and Wendy didn't seem to care for him at all. Far too much of the early parts of the book (so the later years) were spent wallowing in the guilt of their dark secret, which wasn't a secret at all.

As for the twist in the final pages, I had to stop myself rolling my eyes. Not at the twist itself, but that the characters hadn't considered such a thing being the case. No spoilers, so I won't go into it, but it seemed like an obvious thing - but maybe I'm just too paranoid.

This is not a bad thriller at all. But to me, it committed the ultimate sin - it bored me. Other people will enjoy but it just wasn't for me.

Peter Swanson does it again. This book follows married couple Wendy and Thom. The book starts in 2023 and we meet Wendy and Thom a married couple who have been together a very long time. The book starts at the end of their story and takes you back to the beginning of it. It was like reading in rewind. Sometimes it got a wee bit confusing, when I was so engrossed and would forget it was going backwards. Wendy and Thom have a secret that has followed them through their marriage. It was interesting reading why they were the way they were. It was good finding out what really happened and why Thom was the way he was. I really liked the character of Thom, I liked Wendy just not as much as Thom. I really enjoyed the ending and it had Peter Swanson's usual unexpected twist. I highly recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Faber and Faber for the opportunity to read this great book.

The story follows Wendy and Thom, who have been married a long time and share a dark secret. Wendy is worried Thom's drinking is going to cause problems and she sets out to make sure it doesn't. We also travel back in time to when they first met. The story moves between the past and present day, backgrounds and relationships are explained and secrets are gradually revealed.

I really enjoyed this book.
It was quite a slow burner but, for me, that made it all the more enjoyable.
I loved learning about Tom and Wendy’s history and enjoyed the timeline moving in a different direction. I felt like I really knew them both individually and as a couple.
A really enjoyable slow-burn psychological/domestic thriller.

Kill Your Darlings follows a longtime married couple, Wendy and Thom, living in Massachusetts. Wendy is a published poet, and Thom is an English professor. They’ve got a gorgeous house, they’ve got a wonderful son, and they’ve got money. Everything sounds perfect, right? And it is… apart from the small fact that Wendy wants to murder her husband.

This thriller is a slow but sharp examination of a marriage held together by a dark shared secret. The story begins in 2023 and is told in reverse until the year 1982 when the couple first meet. As the years tick backwards, the secrets of their past are revealed, and we learn how the Wendy and Thom of today came to be. It took me a little while to get used to the narrative, but in the end it became my favourite thing about the book because of the way in which it built tension. The ending was very clever and well worth the wait.

All in all, Peter Swanson once again delivers with this one. If you’re looking for a slow-burn psychological/domestic thriller, this could be for you.

Perfect for fans of: Rock Paper Scissors, The Silent Patient, The Girl on the Train, My Lovely Wife, and Before I Go To Sleep.

Kind thanks to @faberbooks for the opportunity to read this advanced copy in exchange for my thoughts.

I generally like Peter Swanson’s books so was excited to receive a review copy of this, his latest.
This is the story of a dark romance between Thom Graves, an English professor and his wife, Wendy. It opens with her killing him to stop a big secret being revealed.
The story then moves backwards to the beginning of their relationship and in my opinion, ends very abruptly.
The construction of the plot is unusual as the story unfolds, moving through their lives to when they first met at school aged 14.
However there was a lack of tension due to this way of telling the story. Also I was not keen on the characters. As in Peter Swanson’s other books they are amoral, having no qualms about cold blooded murder. There were very few surprises and the ending left me feeling strangely unsatisfied.
As usual with this author, the actual writing and story telling was extremely good. I look forward to his next book but for me “Kill Your Darlings” was not my favourite.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my advance copy.

As a fan of Peter Swanson, I was excited to dive into Kill Your Darlings, but sadly it didn’t quite deliver for me. The story begins with Wendy killing her husband Thom—after years of resentment and a looming secret—and then unfolds in reverse, peeling back the layers of their troubled marriage.

While the backwards structure is clever, I struggled to stay engaged. The tension fizzled out early, and I never quite connected with the characters. That said, Swanson’s writing is strong, and the ending was the highlight—dark, sharp, and satisfying.

A well-crafted novel, but not a page-turner for me.

I was so intrigued by the start at the end, end at the beginning premise and at first I was a little bit concerned that we weren't going to get the consequences of that first chapter, but I shouldn't have worried. such a perfectly mundane ending for it to feasibly be the beginning, but such a beautiful tie-in so we can fill the gaps in ourselves. so clever!!

Thank you Net Gallery for the book. It was very enjoyable, very entertaining, lots of twists and turns. I loved the characters. The only bad thing I have to say about this book is that it kept me reading way past midnight, I couldn't put it down! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Eagerly devoured this new Peter Swanson thriller. It’s a love story told in reverse. Wendy and Thom are bound together by dark secrets that threaten to strangle their relationship. Folie a deux is never an equal partnership.

Thom and Wendy are in their fifties and have been together since they were schoolkids. Thom drinks and is a womaniser and Wendy wants out.

The story starts in the present and takes us back in time throughout their lives with their big milestones highlighted such as them meeting, their marriage and the birth of their child. But they both harbour a deep secret that is long buried. Or is it?

A very clever book which I thoroughly enjoyed. I have not read anything else by this author but this is a real page turner and definitely worth 5 stars from me. I devoured it and it has one of the best endings ever! Highly recommended.

Thanks to all involved for the copy!

Being a lover of this authors work I was really excited about reading this one. However, I was left slightly disappointed. The story is told in reverse so starts with descriptions of the marriage of Wendy and Thom. We early on get to the point where Wendy kills Thom and the story really didn’t do much for me from here on in.

The story then delves into the rest of their lives previous to the murder and although it was very cleverly written I am obviously not a fan of back to front writing. The end of the story was good and the only part that left me wanting more.