Love Letters to a Serial Killer
Finished: April 2024
Book Source: NetGalley
Book Publication Date: June 2024
An aimless young woman starts writing to an accused serial killer while he awaits trial and then, once he’s acquitted, decides to move in with him and take the investigation into her own hands in this dark and irresistibly compelling debut thriller.
Recently ghosted and sick of watching her friends fade into the suburbs, thirty-something Hannah finds community in a true-crime forum that’s on a mission to solve the murders of four women in Atlanta. After William, a handsome lawyer, is arrested for the killings, Hannah begins writing him letters. It’s the perfect outlet for her pent-up frustration and rage. The exercise empowers her, and even feels healthy at first.
Until William writes back.
Hannah’s interest in the case goes from curiosity to obsession, leaving space for nothing else as her life implodes around her. After she loses her job, she heads to Georgia to attend the trial and befriends other true-crime junkies like herself. When a fifth woman is discovered murdered, the jury has no choice but to find William not guilty, and Hannah is the first person he calls upon his release. The two of them quickly fall into a routine of domestic bliss.
Well, as blissful as one can feel while secretly investigating their partner for serial murder…
Trigger Warnings:
Murder, serial killer, rape, violence, obsession with a serial killer, sex scenes
Characters
- Hannah – main character, works in PR but hates her job, very low self worth
- Meghan – Hannah’s best friend
- Max – Hannah’s ex boyfriend that is in a punk band
- William – accused serial killer Hannah starts writing to
- Mark – William’s dad, rich, influential lawyer
- Bentley – William’s brother
- Cindy – William’s mom
- Dotty and Lauren – two other women that are obsessed with William
My Review
Love Letters to a Serial Killer by Tessa Coyrell presents a unique exploration of self-worth and obsession, blurring the lines between fascination and horror. The main character, Hannah, is working at a job she is not happy with and has just gotten dumped by a man that treated her like dirt but she is still obsessing over. Hannah’s cringeworthy demeanor, while intentional for the narrative, can sometimes be a bit overwhelming. Her extreme lack of confidence leads her down a path of seeking validation from a serial killer, despite the warnings from her best friend and coworker. I found myself wanting to only read this book during the day due to the anxiety of all of her choices.
The relationship between Hannah and William felt extremely superficial, but I’ve never had a relationship with an accused serial killer… so maybe that was the point. There were some spicy-ish scenes described for those sensitive to reading those (although it’s a book about falling in love with an accused serial killer, so sex scenes are probably not the risqué parts of this book).
While the premise was intriguing, the ending fell short for me. It felt rushed and the last few pages were cliché. The overall book does offer an interesting perspective on obsession and self-worth, so I would recommend it.
Spoilers/Summary
SPOILERS BELOW. Stop here if you do not want to read spoilers.
Starts off with a bang. Hannah is tied to a chair worried about the killer coming back.
Jumps to the past, starting with her getting dumped by Max. Then bodies start getting found in a ditch and Hannah focuses her obsession on the case. She joined a forum and spends all of her time on that. She even investigates William but decides he looks too normal to be the killer. William is arrested after a woman he went on a date with ends up mudered in the ditch and all of the other women have ties to him.
Hannah writes a letter to William, venting about how awful he is. He writes her back. She starts to hyper fixate on these letters to the point that she loses her job. William eventually asks her to be his girlfriend in a letter and she says yes.
She decides to go to Georgia from Minneapolis to watch the case. She stays in a cheap hotel and goes to the trial every day.
Fast foward to present-ish and we’re back with her tied up in the chair. The killer is telling her she should have stopped looking into the case.
Back to the trial, she meets Lauren and Dotty who are also obsessed with the case. William ends up getting acquitted after another body ends up in the ditch during the trial. It was a bartender from the area. William comes to the hotel and proposes to Hannah and sweeps her away to a nice, family owned house. Hannah keeps investigating and finds a box with things linked to each of the murders in William’s desk. She confides in his brother, Bentley, and gets him to go to the bar that the bartender worked at.
Bentley ends up drugging Hannah and is going kill her. He has sex with her first and confesses to all of the killings. He had an affair with the first victim, confided in the second that he had murdered the first, then the rest he murdered to throw suspicion on William.
William saves Hannah, beats up Bentley and scares him away and tells him he’ll kill him if he comes back. He breaks up with Hannah after finding the forum. Hannah moves home to live with her parents and gets a job working in a coffee shop. The last page is revealed she is pregnant… and it could be either William or Bentley’s baby.
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