THE EXES is former bookseller and editor Leodora Darlington’s explosive and unputdownable debut thriller about a woman whose exes all seem to have the mysterious habit of turning up dead.

Born to an abusive, alcoholic father and a shrewd, cunning mother, Natalie knows dysfunction: the palpable tension it creates, the fear that claws at her heart, and the ways that she has had to protect her younger sister, Claire, from seeing the ripple effects of it. Now, as an adult, it is why she tries so hard to find the perfect man to achieve her ultimate goal of becoming a mother…and definitely a better mother than her mother was.

It seems that Natalie is at least halfway to her goal. She has married James, her handsome, charming boss. And thanks to an inheritance, she has funneled away enough money for them to begin to consider IVF. So why is it that on the night we meet them, James is a sobbing mess, and all he can say is, “But Natalie, I found your letters.”

Like many of us, Natalie didn’t find her happily ever after the first time she went on a date with a man, and there was a string of names and bad romances before James: Marc, Luca and George. They were perfect on paper and charming at first, but then they became all the things that Natalie learned too young to fear: controlling, manipulative, abusive…and dead. You see, each of her former relationships has ended not with breakup texts and tears, but with the death of her boyfriend.

"...a thriller that is as explosive as it is intellectual, as fast-paced and fun as it is thought-provoking. Rest assured, Darlington promises that she will be the 'ex' of nothing. THE EXES is proof that this brilliant debut novelist is here to stay."

In Marc’s case, a tumble off a balcony at a party ended with his skull covered in a halo of blood on the ground below shortly after Natalie caught him cheating on her with a friend. Popular Luca succumbed to a heart condition exacerbated by alcohol and MDMA at a party, but only after he was caught showing off intimate, degrading videos of Natalie. And George? Well, their love story ended with a knife in his heart…but only after he threatened Natalie and her sister, Claire. They were all accidents, with a touch of self-defense. And if it’s a little suspicious that all of Natalie’s exes have turned up dead, well, no one is more suspicious than Natalie herself.

So it is that Natalie has penned letters to each of her exes, clarifying what went wrong, how she felt about it, and everything that led up to each of their deaths --- or at least up until she blacks out just in time to miss their final moments. Natalie knows that her own parents had little bursts of evil and rage in them --- she’s even pretty sure that her mother killed her father --- and she has no doubt now that their need to correct and exact vengeance has been inherited by her. But then again, just like with her father's passing, life has only gotten better after each death.

Marc was no longer around to criticize her, Luca was no longer around to degrade her, and George probably would have gone on to hurt scores of other women if he was still around. Natalie doesn’t want to become a “the ends justify the means” kind of person, but how can she regret any of their deaths if her life seems so perfect now? And as long as it remains so, her murderous rages cannot go very far, right?

Then the other shoe drops. After discovering Natalie’s letters --- and fearing for his own life --- James approaches his no-good, addict brother for help. Will recently cut out of the CBD IPA company the two started, sees his opportunity and blackmails James, saying that unless he pays him and returns his half of the company to him, he will go to the authorities with Natalie’s letters. James may be fearful of his wife, but that doesn’t mean he wants her to rot in prison, so he does the unthinkable and drains her IVF fund to pay off his brother. Now Natalie must wonder: Is she mad enough at James to repeat her pattern. If so, what does that say about her and her real motives throughout every “breakup”?

But as Natalie and James fight to protect their relationship and learn to trust each other again, Natalie’s past comes back to haunt her in a surprising way. Attending therapy sessions with a doctor known only as Dimple, she starts to unpack her history of violence --- as well as her relationships with her mother, father and sister --- to examine what really happened after each blackout and before each death. Slowly, a pattern emerges, but it is not the one Natalie has spent so many years fearing or fighting to keep under control.

What if, instead, someone else has been watching Natalie’s love life and course-correcting along the way? What if she isn’t a murderer after all, but only a victim? And what will happen if that mysterious third party learns that James also has misbehaved? While Natalie and James try to figure out the truth, they each reveal their own secrets that may upend their entire marriage, forcing them to ask which of them --- if either of them --- is really worth protecting.

While our desires may be much more figurative, I think it is safe to say that nearly everyone has fantasized about killing an ex, or at least what life might be like if they were no longer lurking in the shadows, informing our experiences and memories, and making us reckon with our own flaws. It is this exact fantasy that Leodora Darlington plays with, inviting her readers to imagine their worst, most vindictive selves and what might happen if romance was ever really fair. The result is a real mind puzzle of victimhood and vengeance, romance and retribution. She employs her multi-perspective format like a weapon, while carefully and slowly hacking away at her own protagonist to reveal the fleshy trauma beneath.

But THE EXES isn’t just revenge porn. Darlington asks keen, insightful questions about romantic power dynamics, interracial relationships and fetishism that elevate this novel to something a bit more sophisticated and incisive. Add to that complex portrayals of childhood trauma and the ripple effects of abuse, and you have a thriller that is as explosive as it is intellectual, as fast-paced and fun as it is thought-provoking. Rest assured, Darlington promises that she will be the “ex” of nothing. THE EXES is proof that this brilliant debut novelist is here to stay.