Published By: Hodder & Stoughton
Pages: 320
Released On: 05/06/2025
Julie Tudor is Not a Psychopath.
Julie Tudor is 49 and has it all: a fantastic job (well-maintained spreadsheets are the lynchpin of an efficient office), a beautiful house (some may wonder how she got the money for it, but nothing has been proved) and the man of her dreams.
Julie Tudor is Not a Stalker.
Sean is 25 and the love of Julie’s life. The only problem is, he thinks he’s in love with someone else.
And Julie Tudor is definitely, definitely not a serial killer.
But Julie has found herself in a similar situation before. And if there’s one thing Julie knows, it’s how to get rid of the competition…
After all, what’s a little murder in the name of true love?
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I was a little concerned before starting this that it wouldn’t be anything new. I’ve read a lot of books recently involving women who don’t necessarily look like murderers (whatever one looks like), killing men for a plethora of reasons. And whilst all good in their own way, the format is starting to get a little samey, so I felt this might suffer just because of what I’d read before. But it didn’t. Jennifer has given us everything we expect but it still feels fresh and exciting.
I think what’s different, is that in other books I’ve read, they know what they’re doing is wrong but they find a way to accept it. But Julie seems to genuinely believe she is doing the right thing.
It isn’t all murder either. I thought there would be more, sort of akin to the Sweetpea series by CJ Skuse, but that’s not a problem. It’s very much an exploration of Julie’s character rather than what she’s doing, in my opinion.
I know we’re not meant to like Julie, of course we’re not. She’s obsessive and creepy and, well, a psychopath. She hurts people, physically and emotionally, she’s not a nice person. And yet, I couldn’t help but fall for her in a similar vein to Rhiannon in the aforementioned Sweetpea series. There’s just something about Julie that I was rooting for. There are of course other characters and they work well off of her, but I didn’t really care about them, not because they were badly written or unimportant, but because this is Julie’s story and she is a fabulous creation from start to finish.
I believe this is her debut novel. I thoroughly look forward to seeing what she produces next, whether it’s in the thriller genre or otherwise, I think her handling of characters is really great.
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