Sloane Sutherland and Rowan Kane are both serial killers — but they only kill other killers, the predators the law never catches. When their paths cross during a competitive, invitation-only "game" that turns vigilante murder into an annual contest, the two rivals strike up an unlikely friendship built on gallows humor, shared trauma, and a mutual appreciation for creative violence.
What starts as banter and one-upmanship slowly deepens into something neither of them expected or knows how to handle. But Sloane and Rowan both carry wounds from the past, and as their bond grows, an old threat begins closing in — one tangled up in the reasons they each became what they are.
The first book in Brynne Weaver's Ruinous Love Trilogy, Butcher & Blackbird is a dark romantic comedy that swings between graphic horror and genuine tenderness. Following the Kane family and the dangerous women they love, it pairs an extremely violent premise with banter-driven, slow-burn romance — squarely for readers who like their love stories pitch-black.