This is our book review for X’s and O’s by Elle Thorpe – the first novel in the Saint View Murder Squad series.
At the time of publishing this guide, this story is available on Kindle Unlimited.
Star rating
Pepper rating (find our Pepper scale here)
Book Review:
This was my first book by author Elle Thorpe. I picked it up after someone in the multitudinous book groups I’m in on social media asked for something specific: A person who’s being stalked being mad if their stalker was also stalking someone else because they wanted to be the only one that person was stalking with some humorous interplay between them. Someone said that X’s and O’s, the 1st in the Saint View Murder Squad series, had those general vibes. I was intrigued so I downloaded it on Kindle Unlimited and got stuck in.
Throughout the book we’re introduced to our FMC Violet, and MMCs X and Whip, members of the Saint View Murder Squad (so named by X) and MMC Levi, a former member of The Slayers Motorcycle Club and eventual member of the murder squad too. This book enters a previously established world from her other series’, but it can standalone as its own trilogy.
This book does have some laugh out loud moments – usually brought to us by X and his ADHD brain – that provide the necessary comic relief to a book about serial killers. The writing overall was decent and the characters were all likeable enough. If you’re looking for a book with a plus-sized main character where she isn’t just “curvy in all the right places” but talks openly about her insecurities regarding her fat rolls, fat dimples, and cellulite, this is the book for you.
What I didn’t enjoy about this book is the development of all of Violet’s relationships with each of her men. The one that felt real and genuine is mucked up through her own assumptions and non-communication and is brought up later while the MMC takes it all on himself which I humbly submit wasn’t true. I’m a lover of a reverse harem and/or why choose as the next reader, but I do like it to feel like she has a real, defineable connection with each of the characters and I don’t get that from her relationships with the other two MMCs. Even if you just go with the idea that “each one gives her something different that she needs”, I didn’t feel like it was truly described or earned which is why it’s just a 3* read for me. I didn’t hate it, so if someone were asking for an RH/WC book that’s on the darker side I’d still suggest it, but it didn’t wow me and that feeling continued through the other two books.
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