Rhiannon Lewis should be happy.
Her cheating fiancé is in jail – framed for the depraved killing spree she committed. Her ex-lover is chopped up and buried where no-one will find him.
But there’s one small problem. She’s pregnant.
And as much as Rhiannon wants to continue working her way through her kill lists, a small voice inside is trying to make her stop.
Now Rhiannon has to choose – motherhood or murder.

‘In Bloom‘ is the sequel to one of my favourite Women Who Kill books, ‘Sweetpea‘. I know sequels can be challenging, especially sequels to books as original as ‘Sweetoea‘ so I wasn’t sure what to expect of ‘In Bloom‘ but I wanted to spend more time seeing the world through Rhiannon Lewis’ angry, psychopathic eyes. I’ll confess that I was looking forward to watching her deliver more violence and pain to the misogynistic men she constantly encounters.

C. J. Kuse’s Sweetpea novels are often described as ‘darkly comic’. I don’t see them that way. Rhiannon isn’t joking. She isn’t amused. Her violence isn’t ironic. She’s damaged and enraged and violence is her bliss. I don’t see anything comic in that. Sadly, I almost see it as an entirely rational response to Rhiannan’s circumstances.

One of the things I liked most about ‘In Bloom‘ was that Rhiannon’s pregnancy triggers a period of introspection in which she seeks a deeper, surer understanding of her true nature. I liked that, for most of the book, Rhiannon hears the voice of her yet-to-be-born child and has conversations with it. In these conversations, the baby acts partly as the voice of Rhiannon’s new responsibilities to protect her child and partly as a sort of conscience attempting to get her to be more cautious in her actions and consider what she really wants from life. I can see that this dialogue might be seen as ‘darkly comic’ but to me, it seemed like an entirely plausible way for Rhiannon to consider the course she wants her life to take.

I was a little lost at the start of ‘In Bloom’ because it continues straight on from the final scene of ‘Sweetpea’ which left me scrambling to remember details that had faded over the past two years. My confusion didn’t last for long, Rhiannon soon set herself up with a safe but temporary safe space to weather her pregnancy in, staying with the parents of her lover, who she killed and who is not the father of her child. She’s aware enough of how predatory this is to refrain from killing either of her hosts, no matter how often they feature on her daily Kill List.

‘In Bloom’ wasn’t as much of a thriller as ‘Sweetpea’ where I was often on the edge of my seat wondering how/if Rhiannon would avoid detection. There are thriller elements here, especially at the beginning and the end of the book. In some ways, this book is less violent, at least in terms of frequency, but the violence is spectacular and, from Rhiannon’s point of view, entirely necessary.

The middle portion of the book, during which Rhiannon is heavily pregnant, is taken up with her struggle to keep her unborn child happy and safe by NOT killing anyone, no matter how much they deserve it, unless she absolutely has to. She just about manages to restrain herself from killing but she can’t prevent herself from stalking paedophiles and predators by catfishing them on social media. The predators that Rhiannon stalked were easy to believe in and deeply disturbing. Once again Rhiannon’s response seemed, almost, rational. Except that her struggle with restraint and her ever-growing need for release, showed Rhiannon an inescapable truth about her own nature: she kills because she NEEDS the release it brings. It’s her nature to kill. She’s good at it and she relishes it. Yes, she kills bad people but, if there were no bad people she’d have to kill anyway. Someone would always find their way on to her daily Kill List.

The last third of the book was intense. As Rhiannon struggles to reconcile what she knows about her nature with what will be required of her in her impending role as a mother and tries to deflect her relentless pursuit by an implacable homicide detective, she can feel her need to kill growing with each day. I was back on the edge of my seat wondering how/if Rhiannon would get through all this. It’s a tribute to how well the book is written (or a sign of my own incipient psychopathy) that I found myself hoping that Rhiannon would get away with everything.

The ending was strong and believable. It also made me hungry for the third book in the series, ‘Deadhead‘.

I recommend the audiobook version of ‘In Bloom’, narrated by Georgia McGuire. Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample.

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