Just Stab Me Now

Book excerpt: A desperate mother. A dubious escort. And a deranged author who won’t leave them alone. Caroline Lindley is determined that her new romance novel will be her best one yet. Fantasy! Formal gowns! Fencing! And, of course, a twentysomething heroine to star in an enemies-to-lovers plot with all of Caroline’s favourite tropes. But Lady Rosamund Hawkhurst is a thirty-six-year-old widow with two children, her sole focus is facilitating a peace treaty between her adopted nation and her homeland, and she flatly refuses to take the correct approach to there being Only One Bed. What’s an author to do? Based on her popular Fantasy Heroine YouTube shorts series, Jill Bearup’s debut novel brings us the best of worlds both meta and medieval-inspired. Leigh Bardugo and Terry Pratchett aficionados will enjoy the political intrigue paired with convivial, tongue-in-cheek satire, and romance fans will savour plenty of slow-burn, fade-to-black romance. If you loved Stranger Than Fiction and The Princess Bride, you will soon find yourself cheering on enemies-to-BFFs Rosamund and Caroline as together they learn what it means to be the hero of your own story.