Tourist Season (The Seasons of Carnage Trilogy) by Brynne Weaver

A postcard-pretty seaside town with a truly unhinged body count—and the woman quietly keeping it that way. Tourist Season is darkly funny, razor-sharp, and violently romantic: small-town vibes with serial-killer energy, where the banter is biting, the attraction is feral, and “protecting the town” includes a little… composting.

Welcome to Cape Carnage, where the shops are cute, the houses are colorful, and Harper Starling makes sure everything stays perfect. She’s a gifted gardener, fiercely loyal to her home (and her aging mentor), and she has one simple policy for troublesome tourists: they don’t check out—they get planted under her award-winning flowerbeds.

Then Nolan Rhodes arrives looking like a dream and moving like a weapon. Charming, gorgeous, and deadly with a blade, he returns every year on the anniversary of the hit-and-run that wrecked his life to take revenge—one target at a time. This year, he’s saved the best for last: Harper. Only problem? She’s not what he expected… and she’s more than capable of ending him first.

When an amateur true-crime sleuth starts poking around, Harper and Nolan strike a tense little deal: he helps protect the town, and she keeps quiet about his “hobby.” For now. But the truce turns into obsession fast—and in Cape Carnage, love isn’t safe. It’s lethal.