How to Kidnap a Fake Date

How to Kidnap a Fake Date opens Effie Campbell's Killer Kin series with a dark romantic comedy about Maggie Hamilton, the disappointing daughter of a family of professional killers — twenty-nine years old with a kill count of zero. When her father sets a deadline for her to marry her volatile ex and take over the family business, Maggie panics and grabs the nearest available body: Roman Ellis, her broad-shouldered, bad-tempered neighbour, who wants nothing to do with her.

With Roman literally tied up in her passenger seat, Maggie drags him to the Scottish Highlands for her father's second wedding, presenting him as her devoted long-term boyfriend. She just has to keep up the act for a week — without dying, without murdering anyone, and without letting a house full of trained killers realise her boyfriend is actually a hostage. Roman, unsurprisingly, has no intention of making this easy for her.

The book blends fake dating and forced proximity with pitch-black humour and a mafia-adjacent premise, leaning into spice and comic chaos rather than menace.