How I’ll Kill You

Description

Your next stay-up-all-night thriller, about identical triplets who have a nasty habit of killing their boyfriends, and what happens when the youngest commits their worst crime yet: falling in love with her mark.

Make him want you.
Make him love you.
Make him dead.

Sissy has an…interesting family. Always the careful one, always the cautious one, she has handled the cleanup while her serial killer sisters have carved a path of carnage across the U.S. Now, as they arrive in the Arizona heat, Sissy must step up and embrace the family pastime of making a man fall in love and then murdering him. Her first target? A young widower named Edison—and their mutual attraction is instant. While their relationship progresses, and most couples would be thinking about picking out china patterns and moving in together, Sissy’s family is reminding her to think about picking out burial sites and moving on. 

Then something happens that Sissy never anticipated: She begins to feel protective of Edison, and before she can help it, she’s fallen in love. But the clock is ticking, and her sisters are growing restless. It becomes clear that the gravesite she chooses will hide a body no matter what happens; but if she betrays her family, will it be hers?“This chilling book is both twisted and tense. The writing is lean, the plotting is tight, and the story is whip smart. Will have you glued to the page.”
—Samantha Downing, USA Today bestselling author of My Lovely Wife

“A smart, sharp thriller that is both suspenseful and also surprisingly heartbreaking. The relationship between the three sisters is riveting. Once you’re done, you’ll be begging for more.”
—Jesse Q. Sutanto, author of Dial A for Aunties

“Ren DeStefano put me through the emotional ringer…I felt like I was breathing in the dry desert air, I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen next, I was rooting for the anti-hero Sissy even when I wasn’t sure that I should be. I absolutely couldn’t put down this propulsive thriller until I saw how it ended!”
—Alicia Thompson, bestselling author of Love in the Time of Serial Killers

Ren DeStefano lives in Connecticut, where she was born and raised. When she’s not writing thrillers, she’s listening to true crime podcasts and crocheting way too many blankets.
 Reader’s Guide
How I’ll Kill You by Ren DeStefano
Discussion Questions:

1. Sissy is highly sensitive to her sisters’ opinions of her. At what point do you feel she began to prioritize her own wants? What impact did it end up having on her, positive and negative?

2. What qualities does Sissy have that set her apart from her sisters? What do you think it is about her that ultimately causes her to deviate from their wants concerning the plan to kill Edison?

3. The theme of family—the ones we’re born into and the ones we make along the way—is prevalent in this novel. What did Sissy learn about these kinds of family by the time she broke free?

4. The ending of the novel leaves Sissy with new possibilities. Why do you think the author wrote it that way? How do you see Sissy’s next few years playing out?

5. Sissy believes there is goodness in her sisters, and in herself. Is it possible for someone to be a cold, calculated murderer and at the same time be capable of loving their family?

6. Does Sissy change after she’s apart from her sisters? Or is there evidence to suggest she was always the person she is at the end of the story?

7. Although Sissy and her sisters were raised in foster care, Sissy had an easier time finding a foster family who loved her. Does this play a role in how she turned out? Do Moody and Iris’s harsher upbringings explain how they turned out?

8. Because it will keep her family together, Sissy never questions that she’ll have to murder Edison, and she’s surprised when she begins to realize she doesn’t want to do it. In what ways is it harmful to love someone so much that you’ll do anything they wish?

9. Dara is Sissy’s neighbor and Colin is her foster brother. Yet, Sissy hid her affection for these characters from her sisters. Why did she do this? What did she worry would happen if her sisters found out?

10. What kind of life could Sissy and Edison have together? Is it possible that they could be happy?US