Tourist Season by Brynne Weaver

Title: Tourist Season (Seasons of Carnage #1)

Author: Brynne Weaver

Publisher: Slowburn 2025

Genre: Horror Romance

Pages: 368

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Seasonal Winter - Romance; Romanceopoly - Secret Stacks Club (Plot Twist Pages); Cover Lover - Weapon from the board game Clue

Where I Got It: Library

Spice Rating: 6

*Welcome to Cape Carnage! Visit Once, Stay Forever.

You can hide in the farthest reaches of the deepest hell, and I will still drag you out. Even the devil can’t save you from me.

Cape Carnage is a seaside town of colorful houses, quirky shops, and an unusually high body count. With tourists comes trouble, and Harper Starling won’t let anyone ruin her picture-perfect home. A skilled gardener with killer instincts, Harper protects her sanctuary—and her aging mentor with a fading memory—at any cost. Troublesome tourists don’t check out of Carnage. They compost beneath Harper’s award-winning flowerbeds.

But Nolan Rhodes isn’t your average tourist. Devilishly handsome, disarmingly charming, and skilled with a blade, Nolan is relentless in the pursuit of revenge. On every anniversary of the hit-and-run accident that fractured his life, Nolan slays another target. And he’s saved the best for last: the undeniably beautiful Harper Starling. The problem? Harper isn’t the monster he expected. And she won’t go down without a fight.

When an amateur true crime investigator comes to Cape Carnage on the trail of a long-lost serial killer, Harper and Nolan strike an uneasy truce. If Nolan helps Harper protect her town, she’ll keep quiet about his hunting habits … for now. But their alliance soon spirals into obsession, one that threatens to shatter every secret in Carnage—including their fragile love.*

Not quite to the level of the Ruinous Love trilogy, but I did thoroughly enjoy this book full of more murder than spicy scenes. I enjoyed the strange cat and mouse game the leads played throughout the chapters. We get to see two very broken people deal with traumatic pasts and find romance along the way. The murder scenes were delightful. My favorite was the hands clapping. Morpheus the murder bird was a great addition to all of those scenes. I loved the interactions between Harper and Arthur. The few spicy scenes were very strong. But I felt that the chemistry between Nolan and Harper was lacking a bit. I would have liked some more conversations and/or pining from either of them. The ending does have a cliffhanger, but Nolan and Harper gets a HEA or at least a happy-right-now. I will definitely be picking up the next book when it releases in June.

Seasons of Carnage

• #1 Tourist Season
• #2 Harvest Season
• #3 TBD

Next up on the TBR pile: