If Books Could Kill

When Roxie makes a tongue-in-cheek wish to live out the plot of her favorite author’s next novel, she has romance in mind — namely, the sweet, safe, swoon-worthy storylines Anna Matthews is known for. It should be a dream come true when her wish is granted by a mysterious busker, and she finds herself swept into a fairytale first date with a dashing stranger who seems destined to take her breath away.

 

Except for one little hiccup: that dashing stranger tries to take her breath away. Literally. With a knife. The thing is, Roxie may be the new Anna Matthews protagonist — but this time, Anna is writing a crime thriller.

 

Thrown into a perilous genre she’s never read, Roxie is desperate for help. So, when her escape from a potential murderer takes her straight into the path of Grant Hoffman — an anxious English professor with a convenient love of crime novels — she decides a little light kidnapping is a small price to pay for survival.

 

Together, Roxie and Grant team up to navigate a madcap story where the lines between fiction and reality blur and find out if they have what it takes to make it to The End — or maybe even Happily Ever After.

Additional information

Genre

Action/Adventure, Contemporary, Humor/Satire, Mystery/Crime, Romance, Speculative, Thriller/Suspense

Age

Adult

Publisher

Penguin Random House

Imprint

Pamela Dorman Books (US), Penguin Michael Joseph (UK)

Language(s)

Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian

Format(s)

Audiobook, Hardcover, Trade paperback

Author

Kate Eberle

Release Date

18 June 2025

Release Month

June Releases

About the Author

Kate Eberle studied journalism at Boston University before rediscovering her love of fiction. She lives and writes in Connecticut, where she spends the rest of her time listening to audiobooks like it’s her job (it literally is) and being the ultimate menace to society: a grown-up Theater Kid. If Books Could Kill is her first novel. Represented by Katie Greenstreet at Paper Literary.

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