Cordelia Black is that girl. Is it wrong to say that about a serial killer? Probably. But is it so wrong when the killer targets men who commit horrible crimes against women? Like I said, she’s that girl. She had me channeling my inner Lucille Bluth, shouting “ Good for her!” This book was such a fun ride from beginning to end. I loved the Dexter/Promising Young Woman vibes. Cordelia had me rooting for her from the get go. She is fierce, cunning, sassy, and always one step ahead. Always have a plan is her motto and even when she was impulsive she was beyond smart. Her friendship with Diane was goals, and clearly such a drive for why she does what she does. As a nurse I found the medication drama very interesting and was left wondering more about what happened with the drug she was representing! Always #justiceforMango was served, which thank God! I hope there is a second book and if not I look forward to hearing more from this author! I can’t believe this was her debut. Thanks to the author, NetGalley, and Poisoned Pen Press for allowing me to read this!

I was shocked to learn that “This Girl’s a Killer” is Wells’s first. An incredible 5-star read. I found the characters to be super dynamic. Cordelia was an absolute star and kept me guessing until the very end!

This Girl's a Killer by Emma C. Wells is an amazing debut that delivers a thrilling and darkly satisfying revenge story. The star of the show is Cordelia Black, a pharma rep by day and vigilante by night, targeting the worst men in South Louisiana. You’ll love this main character—she’s sharp, unapologetic, and utterly dedicated to her mission of serving karma to men who think they’ve escaped justice. Think of her as a female Dexter, but with a stylish designer wardrobe and a razor-sharp wit.

Cordelia’s methodical approach to her "work" starts to unravel when things don’t go according to plan, leading to an intense and suspenseful ride. As the tension mounts and her best friend’s new boyfriend raises alarms, Cordelia is forced to confront her own actions and the web of lies she’s spun.

This novel is fun, exciting, and packed with moments that will keep you on the edge of your seat. If you love a good anti-heroine with a dark side, This Girl's a Killer will be a perfect fit. Wells has crafted a smart, fast-paced story that feels like a fresh twist on the classic revenge thriller. You won’t be able to put it down!

3.5/5

I loved the sound of this, a vigilante serial killer with plenty of female rage sounded too good to pass up for me. Cordelia was a fascinating character, sometimes you can understand why she is the way that she is and others you’re like ok this bitch is just unhinged but I thought that was fun. This is darkly comedic, Cordelia is acerbic and sharp but when she’s around her best friend Diane and Diane’s daughter there is a softer side to her. While I felt this was a little long and rambling at times the suspense was solid and the tension kept amping up as the book went along. The ending was a bit anticlimactic and there were some loose ends but overall I had fun with this one and think it will be popular once it’s released.

I was underwhelmed by this book. It started off promising with a female version of dexter and some interesting side characters but then the majority of the book was focused on the dead body which essentially was the other main character. I would have been much more interested in living characters.

Not sure whether to laugh or to squeal from fright. Cordelia Black is definitely a Killer! Some of the lines are laugh aloud funny while the premise and execution (eye roll, pun intended) are absolutely gruesome. Couldn’t put it down but also too scared to close my eyes.

Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the opportunity to read this ARC.

this book reminded me too much of another book that I can't think of what the name of it was. I really didn't like the premise of someone killing men because she had a bad feeling about them. Probably not my type of book but others may enjoy it.

This had me at the edge of my seat!!!! Ahhh. So recommend everyone read this!!!! This book was giving horror and all of those necessary Halloween vibes!!!

This Girl’s a Killer

𝚁𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐: 4.5⭐️
𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: thriller/ mystery📚

𝙼𝚢 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜:
As a huge Dexter fan I enjoyed this one! Love a female serial killer

𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎:
Suspenseful reads
Complex characters
Found family
Entertaining plots
Pharmaceutical rep by day, monsters killer by night
Thrillers with some drama and comedy
Ride or die friendships
Great debuts

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎𝚍:
The god daughter- we love a sassy child

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗’𝚝 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛:
It was a little slow at times

What a great read especially if you’re a Dexter fan this book is for you! I loved the humor and the love between the friends. I couldn’t help but love Cordelia even though she kills you kind of respect it.

"From saint to stripper— I’d played every role, because monsters didn’t discriminate."

Cordelia Black is a pharmaceutical rep by day but at night she does one thing and that is delivering karma to bad men. Men who believe they have got away with their crimes until they meet her and she delivers justice.

I love a female vigilante/serial killer read and this one didn't disappoint. It was fast-paced and kept my attention throughout. I loved Cordelia's character she was a great friend and godmother and especially her dark humour that had me laughing out loud.

"Nothing stains like red frosting— not even blood."

* I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this book. All thoughts are my own.

The premise is very intriguing but I wasn’t jumping to pick the book up and keep reading. It was a bit gruesome, which I’m pretty picky about. I don’t really liked too much blood. I also feel like Cordelia’s backstory wasn’t fully flushed out and there are still some loose ends when the story is over. I even wish we got more out of the brief romance with Christopher.

I’m curious to see how the author cleans up some things before the release so I might recommend.

This book had me on the edge of my seat! It’s the perfect blend of feminine rage, unexpected twists, and Dexter-style unalivings. We follow Cordelia Black, living a double life as a pharma sales rep by day and a serial unaliver of harmful men by night. Her bestie, Diane, starts dating a guy who’s setting off all kinds of alarms, but he's just missing that one thing to make it justifiable for Cordelia. Does he make it out alive? You’ll have to read to find out!

I swear, I wanted to screeeeam at Diane so many times. I get the whole master manipulator thing, but girl, were your gut instincts turned off or were you just blinded by the idea of the "perfect" man?! Honestly though, we've all had that one friend who couldn't see the red flags waving right in front of them.

My only gripe was that it felt a little too long some chapters could’ve been condensed without losing any impact. Overall, a solid thriller!

The moment I read the book's description, I was eager to dive in. Perhaps it's because I'm an avid Dexter fan? Likely, but the premise of a serial killer who targets only the wicked is too compelling to pass up.
Cordelia Black excels as a pharmaceutical rep by day, yet her nights are spent hunting down villains. She defies the typical image of a serial killer; she's a sociable saleswoman with an enviable wardrobe and the cherished role of godmother. However, her true pursuit at night involves seeking out corrupt men to serve her own brand of justice. Complications arise when her best friend begins a relationship with a man Cordelia distrusts, and her professional life starts to crumble, challenging her to safeguard her friend as her own world starts to fall apart.
I found the book enjoyable, though it lacked the level of suspense I anticipated. The narrative focused more on the protagonist's efforts to avoid capture rather than her exploits in eliminating the wicked. Nevertheless, the conclusion was utterly unexpected.
Thank you Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for the ARC of This Girl’s a Killer in exchange for an honest and independent review.

Well dear reader, I honestly don’t even know where to start with this one. If I could use one word to describe this book, it would be: unhinged. Diabolical would be a close second. If you are a lover of all things Dexter and cannot resist a great female vigilante story, then This Girl’s a Killer needs to be next on your TBR list.

Cordelia Black is a born again badass in Louboutians who leaves absolutely nothing up to chance. She has reinvented herself from the sad, hopeless, victim she portrayed throughout her childhood to a vindicator for the voiceless. Her side hustle: removing bad men from the general population count so his victims may continue to live their life in peace instead on feeling like prey. Up until now, every move Cordelia has ever made has been meticulously calculated and planned. She had to do so in order to continue to operate undetected. Within the course of a night, Cordelia’s entire purpose and future suddenly hangs in the balance as one thing after another continues to go wrong and crumble. Can Cordelia get everything under control before she loses it all and ends up behind bars, no better than a serial killer? Will she be forced to reinvent herself again to avoid detection? Believe me, if anyone’s capable of finding their way out of this mess, Cordelia is.

When I say this book is unhinged, I sincerely mean it in every way, and in the best way. Cordelia may be completely insane by DSM standards, but as the reader, you absolutely see the purpose behind why she is the way she is and why she does what she does. Literally everything that can go wrong does go wrong for Cordelia and I cannot begin to express the level of anxiety that I experienced as a result of reading this book. Sleep was in fact, off the table. I couldn’t stop reading because I just wanted to see how in the heck she was going to get herself out of the next disaster. There were several times when I said out loud “What in the actual…?” while reading this book because again, unhinged.

This book will definitely be a topic of deep discussion across all book clubs, social media platforms, and work lunches from now into the foreseeable future, and I’m here for it. If you’re looking for something different, funny, and completely outside of social norms, please pick this one up because I guarantee you will not regret for a moment. I’m really hoping for a sequel here (fingers crossed)!!

Over the past year, I have read more books about female serial killers than I think I ever have in my life. That's not a complaint - I actually love it - but with the exception of CJ Leede's "Maeve Fly" (still one of my all-time favorite books), there seems to be a formula that all authors follow, which makes these books predictable. That said, this book does have several familiar plot points, but I can honestly say that the last half of the book had me on the edge of my seat, and I couldn't stop reading until I'd finished.

This novel focuses on Cordelia Black, a no-nonsense pharmaceutical rep with a penchant for fashion by day who is a ruthless vigilante serial killer by night. Like many female serial killer books, Cordelia enjoys ridding the world of evil men who prey on the innocent. She has a code (think "Dexter"), and she follows it to a "T," but things get rocky when her best friend Diana starts dating an ER nurse named Simon. There's something off about Simon, and Cordelia doesn't trust him, but she can't kill her best friend's boyfriend based on a feeling - the code won't let her. But as things begin to go south at work due to bad press around a drug Cordelia has been selling, and the media begin to focus on what they think may be the work of a local serial killer, Cordelia starts to feel the pressure. This culminates in Cordelia making a mistake one evening - something she has never done before - and this simple faux pas causes her carefully constructed world to begin to unravel.

While the author follows the familiar checklist of female serial killer books (no-nonsense, single woman hunting evil men, dates a cop, etc.), I was fully engaged and couldn't wait to see how this one turned out - and a lot of that had to do with the fact that I loved Cordelia. She is a multifaceted character that fluctuates between cool and composed and on the verge of losing her shit, but does it in a way that makes her feel like she's someone you know.

The plot is fast-paced and full of twists and reveals that had me setting the book aside so I could breathe. The first half of the book felt familiar, and while I was engaged, I wasn't totally sucked in. That changed about halfway in when things started going south for Cordelia. Once I hit that point, I couldn't stop reading, and I stayed up way too late to finish. Things kept getting worse and worse, and I needed to see how or if Cordelia could get herself out of the predicament she'd found herself in.

I only had a couple of (very minor) gripes with this one. First of all, Cordelia's niece mentions that she is playing Zelda on her Xbox. Being a gamer nerd, I know this isn't possible because Zelda is a Nintendo exclusive, so she'd be playing it on her Switch - not her Xbox. There was also one particular evening in the book - the night that everything began to unravel for Cordelia - where I felt that way too much happened, and the timing didn't add up. She meets a victim for dinner in the evening, takes him to her "spot," kills him, dumps his body, goes home, and changes; then something huge happens, which then leads to a close call with her cop boyfriend, then a shower, then to the store to buy a few things (the store would have been closed by this point), comes home, cleans up, goes out to hide more evidence and then comes home and gets some sleep. I feel like ALL of that would have taken at least 8 hours to do, and the timing of things didn't add up for me. I was able to get past it, but it really bugged me.

Minor annoyances aside, I found this one to be a lot of fun. Even though she felt somewhat familiar, Cordelia is a vigilante anti-heroine I couldn't help but root for. If you're looking for a dark and gritty book that will keep you on the edge of your seat, this is the one for you. Just be prepared not to do anything but read once you've hit the halfway mark. There's no way you can stop this one once things really start to go south for Cordelia.

I really dug This Girl’s a Killer!

This book follows Cordelia Black, a pharmaceutical rep by day, killer of bad men by night. She also loves her found family: her best friend Diane and Diane’s daughter Sugar. It’s a complicated life, but she balances it well…until the news starts throwing around the words “serial killer”. These words put Cordelia on high alert, only made worse when Diane meets Simon. Something’s not quite right about him and Cordelia will do whatever she has to to protect her family.

This book felt like female Dexter combined with aspects of Promising Young Woman, my favorite film the year it came out. This book was fun! It was funny at times and you can really feel the tension as things in Cordelia’s life starts to unravel. I loved Cordelia and her lifestyle…a bourgeois woman going after the pedophiles and rapists. The tone of this one was delectable and despite having read many thrillers, I actually didn’t guess this ending.

I definitely recommend checking this one out when it comes out next month!

Thank you to Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: 10/29

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

Seeing good reviews for this so I am definitely in the minority in not liking it. Took me absolutely forever to get a third of the way and I just could not continue. Once Cordelia started explaining the method of her paintings, that was enough for me. She is such a hot mess yet the description of he would make you think the exact opposite. My favorite character wasn't even a main character - it was Samantha (Sugar).

The fact that this was a debut book is mind blowing. Cordelia Black has me obsessed. I couldn't get this book out of my brain. She's very much a female Dexter, hellbent on ridding the world of the smoke in bad men's eyes. This is perfect for fans of the Dexter series but want a female lead. Also perfect for fans of Butcher & Blackbird who want something without spice!

But what does she do when she has a hunch but there's no smoke? She'll have you dying to find out. 😏

This was an interesting book, certainly not what I was expecting, but in a good way. Cordelia is a hugely successful pharma rep, she makes enough money to keep herself in designer duds, until she finds out that one of the drugs she's been pushing is potentially going to be pulled from the market due to serious side effects, something that she had been down playing during her spiel to buyers. Then her bestie, Diane, has a new man, Simon, who Cordelia instantly gets very bad vibes from, Diane's daughter is Cordelia's god daughter so she's on alert to anything that may harm her, including the new boyfriend. Cordelia has a hobby, of sorts, she takes it upon herself to rid the world of 'bad' men, men who she sees with 'smoke' in their eyes (something that happens when she looks closely into their eyes), so when she spots one she drugs him and takes him to her storage room at a separate location that is specially setup to handle them. There is a really funny part when Simon decides to come visit her, which she isn't expecting and he let's it be known that he knows certain things about her, things she doesn't want anyone else to know, one thing after another happens like a non stop action/almost comedy of events that keeps her on her toes for many pages, quite resourceful our Cordelia. I also like the interaction with the neighbor and his dog, very well done. There is quite a bit of graphic violence and other triggers, Simon had a bad habit of collecting and sharing certain photos, that are not meant to be shared (mostly of women/young girls in states of incapacitation or hurt). I would recommend, hard to believe this is a debut book, it is very well written. Thanks to #Netgalley and #Poisoned Pen Press for the ARC.