Undying Love Takes On A Hilarious New Meaning In Alana K. Drex and Billy Ray Middleton Jr.'s Novel, 'Oops, I Killed My Boyfriend'

Love. It’s the one thing nearly all of us strive for, more than any personal achievement or career ambition. Undying love may be the seemingly unattainable ideal of Shakespearean sonnets and Harlequin romance, but with the proliferation of modern-day matchmakers, speed-dating, Tinder and other online apps, it’s clear people the world over yearn for the unique emotional connectivity love provides. But relationships are hard enough if both parties are alive and well. When one or the other is already pushing up daisies, undying love takes on a completely new meaning, as Lacey Todd, the protagonist in Alana K. Drex and Billy Ray Middleton Jr.’s hilarious new novel, Oops, I Killed My Boyfriend, inadvertently finds out.

Lacey is a fresh-faced and successful magazine writer. Her boyfriend Eddie Vale is an up-and-coming rock guitarist with the band Spiral Zero. When readers first meet her, Lacey’s intrusive insecurities about Eddie’s fidelity in the face of constant adoration from his growing legion of female fans has driven her to distraction. In a bid to soothe her anxieties, Eddie agrees to an extended retreat at a remote lakeside cabin where, in a singular twist of fate, Lacey learns that Dahlia Silver, one-time romance author extraordinaire and Lacey’s own teenage literary hero, is vacationing on the neighboring property. Dahlia befriends Lacey with the intention of using her as the basis for a much-needed comeback bestseller, yet events take a bizarre turn when, during the course of an argument, Lacey apparently kills Eddie by bashing her antique Compaq laptop over his head. Despondent, guilt-ridden and worried she’ll be arrested for murder, Lacey begins doubting her own sanity once Eddie’s ghost inexplicably materializes at inopportune times. After it becomes clear her rambunctious rocker has indeed returned from beyond, Lacey rekindles what she can of their doomed-too-soon courtship. Complicating the awkward reunion, however, are the unwelcome advances made by sheriff’s deputy Ryle Franco, a closeted deviant with a fetish for female felons who has his psychosexual sights set firmly on Lacey. With Franco’s obsessive machinations mirrored by Dahlia’s increasingly erratic and violent behavior, it’s only a matter of time before the unlikely lovers are thrown into a madcap maelstrom of mayhem and murder.

Though it contains elements of both paranormal romance and outright horror, at its heart Oops, I Killed My Boyfriend is a pitch-black comedy. Unlike some co-authored works where it’s painfully obvious who wrote which parts, Drex and Middleton Jr.’s prose meshes seamlessly, and they lace the novel’s often zany proceedings with genuinely humorous rapid-fire machine gun banter. For astute readers there’s also a hardy helping of wink-wink, nod-nod pop cultural Easter Eggs sprinkled throughout, but it’s the characters, not wacky situations or any self-referential gags, that define the book. Lacey is a complex, emotionally resonant lead, and her sometimes conflicting feelings towards Eddie—she simultaneously feels love, frustration and guilt about their time together, pre- and post-mortem—are thoroughly believable. Likewise, Eddie, initially portrayed as a self-centered rock star cliché, proves in his later spectral form to be the warm, caring, devoted partner Lacey always wanted him to be but feared he wasn’t.

As the novel’s dastardly duo, Dahlia and Ryle are by turns delightful, despicable, and deliriously demented. Ryle is ostensibly a perverse poster child for the toxic male; aggressive, manipulative, conceited and cunning, he abuses his law enforcement authority to stalk and date-rape unsuspecting victims, and segments focusing on him are squirmy with skin-crawling creepiness. But even Ryle’s methodology, perturbing as it is, pales compared to Dahlia’s deranged intrigues: when introduced she’s a washed-up has-been whose publishing glory days are behind her; as the novel progresses her ever-escalating idiosyncrasies are revealed to be the red flag warnings of a deeply disturbed and dangerous mind.

While there’s a slightly ambiguous climax to Eddie’s story arc that may be off-putting to some, in the end Oops, I Killed My Boyfreind is a fast, fun, fulfilling read, infused with laugh-out-loud dark comic escapades, some unexpected horror hijinks, and a romantic journey that’s as surprisingly sweet as it is unorthodox.

I give Oops, I Killed My Boyfriend a solid 4 (out of 5) on my Fang Scale. Recommended for fans of Peter Jackson’s movie The Frighteners, the current television sitcom Ghosts and the similarly-titled 1990 Patrick Swayze-Demi Moore film. What’s love got to do with it? Absolutely everything.