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Book: “Cross My Heart, Hope You Die” by Mallory Arnold
Publishing Info: Poisoned Pen Press, July 2026
Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher
Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound
Book Description: One isolated cabin. One cheating boyfriend. One plan to get even.
When Nora, Ruby, and Cham discover that they’ve each been dating the same man, what starts as outrage quickly spirals into a plot for revenge. Together they hatch a plan to lure their boyfriend to a romantic getaway in a secluded cabin at the top of a snow-covered mountain.
Only what was meant to be harmless payback soon takes a chilling turn when their not-so-adoring boyfriend is found dead in the cabin.
Stranded and snowed in, the women begin to look at each other with increasing suspicion. And as tensions rise, hidden motives come to light. To survive, each woman must confront her own demons as they fight to uncover if one of them is the killer, or if something else lurks in the freezing wilderness, waiting to pick them off one by one.
Review: Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press for sending me an ARC of this novel!
I’m always down for stories where shitty men get their comeuppance, especially if it is in part due to women getting vengeance against said shitty men. It just feels cathartic these days in a lot of ways. And because of this I was more than eager to read “Cross My Heart, I Hope You Die” by Mallory Arnold. It sounded soapy and fun, which is a great vibe for summer time reading. And if you are looking for a fast and suspenseful mystery to add to your pool reading, it’s a solid choice.
The premise sucked me in from the get go. Nora, Ruby, and Cham are three strangers, totally unconnected to each other except for the fact all of them are dating Jason, and don’t realize it, and when they do realize they’ve been duped (not only in love, but also out of a substantial amount of money), they decide to team up to get revenge… only for it to go horribly wrong. It is kind of like if you take the Millennial black comedy “John Tucker Must Die” and amp it up a bit into an actual murder mystery, with a potential cult issue lurking. And it all works really well. We follow the perspectives of Nora, Ruby, and Cham, and they all felt like they had clear personalities (even if at times they could feel a little two dimensional) that made them all stand apart. Some of them had issues that could work as red herrings to make all of them sometimes question each other (and make the reader question them too), and while I was mostly able to predict a fair amount of what was going to happen, it was still fun to see.
I also liked the weird implications of cult activity, as Ruby’s mysterious past comes into play as a believable device for the setting and the fallout (as she is adopted but finds herself the owner of a cabin in the wilderness after some inheritance stuff is worked out from her biological family…. which may be weird and creepy). I love weird cult stories and we get pieces of the lore through diary entries and transcripts, and I absolutely live for that kind of thing. It’s just absolutely cat nip to me and if you are a total freak like me and love cult stories, this one could be a fun read for you too!
“Cross My Heart, I Hope You Die” is some solid summer reading with twists and turns that I found super fun.
Rating 8: A fun thriller with some creepy cult elements, “Cross My Heart, I Hope You Die” is fun summer reading.
Reader’s Advisory:
“Cross My Heart, I Hope You Die” is included on the Goodreads blog post “Stock Your Summer Shelves With Highly Anticipated Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Horror”.
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