Because I so enjoyed the police procedural style of The Sorority Murder and Don’t Open the Door, I decided to pick up Allison Brennan’s most famous series to take with me to my internship site: the Lucy Kincaid books. They’re already complete, and since Brennan is creating new series, like the above mentioned new novels, I’m assuming the Lucy Kincaid books won’t keep coming. Therefore, it was easy to start with book #0.5, Love is Murder, which was a novella of 106 pages. Love is Murder is a short little number that gave me almost no backstory other than Lucy Kincaid had recently broken up with her boyfriend of two years, and her brother Patrick was a police officer turned private investigator. Huh.
The first novel, then, is Love me to Death, coming in at 470 pages in mass market paperback. Brennan gives us lots of backstory that doesn’t exist in a previous book: Lucy was held captive and sexually assaulted when she was eighteen. She shot dead one of her captors as he wrestled with her brother Patrick, but the other went to prison. Something happened, Patrick was in a coma for two years — basically, lots of dramatics. Now, it’s six years later and the captor and predator who went to prison is out on parole in Colorado, which he’s not supposed to leave. But he does and comes to the D.C. area where Lucy lives. Someone shoots him point blank at the local marina.
Meanwhile, Lucy has applied to work for the FBI. She volunteers with an organization called Women and Children First where she lures sexual offenders on parole to meet up with a fake character (underaged) that Lucy has created online. Her most recent target doesn’t show where he’s supposed to (a club where police are waiting to arrest him while Lucy’s safely at home), but he does show up at a different club, where he is shot point blank.
Love Me to Death was published in 2011, six years after Brennan started publishing. Brennan started writing and publishing in her thirties, making it surprising to me that Lucy is only twenty-four. I found the protagonist of The Sorority Murder and Don’t Open the Door more relatable because she’s closer to my age, but also more established as an adult than Lucy. However, Brennan does write interesting characters. We switch around into different people’s thoughts, not just Lucy’s. The killer, an FBI agent, a cyberhacker with whom Lucy develops a new romantic relationship — Brennan will switch points of view within the same chapter. It’s never confusing.
Although I prefer not to have a ton of romance in any book that contains an investigation, I now realize that the Lucy Kincaid series is labeled “romance thriller.” I wasn’t thrilled myself when I saw that label, but I felt Brennan kept the writing fast paced and interesting. Granted, too many disparate situations all tied into who the killer was, and I’ve never met a family with as much drama in its past as the Kincaids (there’s even mention of Lucy and her cousin, both age seven, sleeping when the cousin was kidnapped and disappeared forever while Lucy was not, so she feels guilty). However, I had a hard time putting this book down. It’s the right size and content for getting through busy, hard days.
I will add that while Brennan mentions sexual assault of minors, she does not describe anything, meaning she addresses a serious topic without gratuitous graphic writing.
Grab the Lapels 
Sounds like a good book for travel; I like a mass market paperback sized book that’s easy to read for airplanes or waiting rooms.
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These are the times I am most likely to read eBooks. I used to carry paperbacks with me everywhere but now I don’t. I particularly like eBooks when I’m flying because I can read to my mood and not have any extra weight to carry in my bags.
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I hear that. Originally, I wasn’t going to bring any paperback books with me to my internship, but I was cautioned that sometimes you go to assignments and have to wait a long time in a space where either cell phones aren’t allowed or it looks bad to be on one.
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Oh yes that’s a bit different. When you actually moving to live somewhere for awhile I would bring books then. But good advice re times when you can’t use phones or it’s not a good look!
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There is also a lot of dialogue, which makes you feel like you’re flying right through. Not a ton of sitting and thinking about The Big Questions.
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I like the fact that the details of the sexual crimes aren’t given. I’m not a big crime reader but the crime I do tend to read and watch are the police procedurals because they tend to focus on the police, the procedure, and their relationships, with little graphic detail of the actual crime. They also tend to not spend a lot of time on nasty criminal behaviour. However when I see the word thriller I expect I am going to get some of that aspect. So, if I saw “romance thriller”, I’d be doubly put off I’m afraid. But I did enjoy reading your review. Sounds like Lucy is a woman on a mission!
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I would guess that the only reason this book got the label “thriller” is because so many tragedies happen in a short period of time. It feels unrealistic, but in fiction, it heightens the sensation of flying by the seat of your pants for a time-sensitive situation, like finding a murderer. I also like that the sexual crimes aren’t detailed because I don’t want to read stuff like that. I couldn’t believe, after reading my first Karin Slaughter book, that some readers truly enjoy that.
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Everyone’s different I guess… but details of any sort of violence doesn’t appeal to me with sexual violence and torture being the absolute end.
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The difference in the amount of backstory between this book and the original novella makes me wonder if the author was keeping notes on the character and they realized they were building a backlog of unused interesting details and needed to catch up. It sounds like it was an organic fit in this book though, and maybe this additional background is going to provide scaffolding for what comes next. Whenever I read a series, I like to wonder about how the writer is keeping track of all of the character and setting details. I think I would have to run my own copy of Wikipedia, but I imagine I would get caught up in the fun of setting up the wiki and forget to actually write anything. 🤣
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I can absolutely see you creating your own Wikipedia page! And getting distracted with making it just so, lol. During COVID, Terry McMillian did a Zoom book club with the SJCPL, and she said she had boxes for each book, and each box was basically a filing cabinet for notes on characters, even if those notes never made it into the book. She was a hoot.
The novella really didn’t add anything to the backstory of Lucy other than she likes her brother Patrick a good deal, probably more than any of her other (many) siblings. All the backstory on her being kidnapped as a senior in high school happened in this first novel. Honestly, I don’t see why the novella happened as book #0.5 instead of somewhere else in the series, but oh well. In the second novel (which I plan to write about here in a minute), it is revealed that she was kidnapped after being lured online by a guy with a fake profile, which is the hang up–she’s now in cybersecurity and helps women and girls avoid online predators.
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This does sound really dramatic! Multiple kidnappings and shootings! Was the 0.5 novella more like a prequel, written after this one?
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Online it says #1 was published in 2010 and #0.5 was published in 2011. I’m not sure what gap it was supposed to fill because it could have come anywhere in the series, so long as both Lucy and her brother Patrick were alive.
The first book was much more dramatic than I cared for, but I did that silly thing where I bought all the books in the series on a whim one night (I think around Thanksgiving), so I’m still reading them. It’s not a spoiler to say I enjoyed the second novel much more.
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Often those .5 novellas are only published as e-books. I don’t know if that’s the case here but I see that sometimes when people want to order whole series at my store and then there are these little ones that don’t exist in hard copy. Maybe she published at as 0.5 because she wrote it after #1 but didn’t want it to be #2? Who knows?
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You’re right! The .5 books are all e-books only! Except…EXCEPT, that the 0.5 book was originally published as a novella at the end of book #3. I know that sounds weird, but Brennan published multiple Lucy Kincaid books each year. I think #2, 0.5, and 3 all came out in 2011?
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Weird…
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The story you describe sounds familiar so I guess I’ve had it out of the library at some stage – it’s hard to distinguish one US crime story from another. I wish I didn’t read so much crime, but libraries stock up on it. I like a little bit of romance to make the character real, and I will not read descriptions of violence.
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It always slips my mind how much crime you read because you don’t review it much, but I can see how it helps pass the time. Right now, I’m reading a classic horror novel from the 1970s, but so much of it is inside the characters’ heads — just thinking, thinking, thinking — that I find my mind wandering. It’s not that I can’t focus generally, it’s that I can’t focus during this internship.
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I’ve never heard of a ‘thriller romance’ but the label makes sense. Allison Brennan is a name that’s vaguely familiar, but I don’t think I’ve ever read one of her books….it does sound like a great read for just relaxing and escaping through. I hope your internship is still going well! I’m excited for your next carrot post already LOL
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I had heard the name Lucy Kincaid before I heard of Allison Brennan. Things with my internship took a positive turn today, so I’m fired up again. For a minute there, I felt like smoldering coals, but that was due to a misunderstanding. Brenna’s books about the only speed my brain can do right now. I’m reading an older horror novel that has a lot of thinking, and I find my mind wandering.
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That happens to me at work sometimes too, so I understand. There’s a miscommunication, etc. but you can get back on track easily. good luck!
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Thanks! Things have been going good the past week.
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glad to hear it!
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[…] sound thriller-y. Thankfully, Kiss Me, Kill Me was much less thriller, and way less romance, than Book #1. Instead, readers get more of the procedural side I enjoyed in a newer book by Brennan that I […]
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