Matchmaking for Psychopaths by Tasha Coryell

Matchmaking for Psychopaths by Tasha Coryell is a wild ride, full of twists and turns.

Favourite Quote:

“The distance between a romantic comedy and a horror film was never as great as people wanted it to be.”

Book Synopsis:

Alexandra grew up hungry. Hungry for food, hungry for safety, hungry for love. Which is why she’s worked so hard to have it a beautiful home, a gorgeous doctor boyfriend, and an ambitious job matching individuals with… unconventional emotional responses. Sure, her clients may sit somewhere on the psychopathy scale. But they’re not the dangerous, murderous kind. They’re doctors, lawyers, teachers, and everyone deserves love.

And that’s exactly what Alex thinks she’s found. Love. So she’s floored when she arrives to her dinner with her boyfriend, expecting a ring in a little box, and instead finding her best friend sat at the table with him. They have news. They’re together now. And apparently her birthday dinner is the best time to share the news.

Suddenly, Alex’s world implodes. She has lost the two people in the world closest to her, her only support. She’s utterly alone, her future in pieces. So when she unexpectedly bumps into a client, Rebecca, and Rebecca seems to want to be friends, it feels like a lifeline.

But then Alex’s now ex turns up dead, then more people around her seem to be dropping like flies. And she can’t help but wonder if this new friendship is a match made in hell.

Review:

Wowser, this is a unique read. It’s part thriller and part romance, with dashes of horror thrown in for good measure. Definitely genre-defying and hard to describe. 

Alex, or Lexie as she prefers to be called, is a complicated character. She has worked hard to overcome her difficult upbringing and craft a life for herself. A picture-perfect life. It takes a bit to get to know her as a character. It’s clear that a lot of details about her past are hidden from us as readers, at least at first. We know she had a rough childhood, but we don’t know the details. I don’t want to ruin anything for you, but what I can say is that those secrets do come out, and each reveal is increasingly more and more shocking. There are honestly so many crazy plot twists in this book that I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I couldn’t put this book down.

After her birthday dinner with her best friend Molly and her fiancé Noah, where they reveal they are in love, things really start to unravel for Lexi. Her carefully crafted life is now in shambles. Luckily, she still has her beloved job at a matchmaking service. Lexi works with the more, shall we say, challenging clients. Those who score high on the psychopathy scale. This is where she meets Rebecca, her new client, and the two hit it off. They have a lot in common. The new friendship fills up Lexi and makes her less lonely. Things are looking up. She’s even up for a promotion at work. But all is not what it seems, and things get more and more banana pants.

There are a lot of subplots going on in this boo,k and although they seem unrelated, they do come together in unexpected ways. It’s difficult to say more without revealing anything. The ending wasn’t a complete surprise, but it did leave me a little disappointed. I think it could have gone in another direction that would have been more satisfying.

Overall, though, a super fun read if you are into bonkers plots and books that defy definition.

Thank you, Berkeley, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.