Love You to Death (Bantam 2025) by debut author Christina Dotson is an action-packed, smart, genre-blending story of a deep but dysfunctional friendship between two young women. The novel is superb—and superbly disturbing. While female friendships are the heart and soul of women’s fiction, the toxic relationship in Love You to Death is not the cozy, supportive one we might expect from, say, a Mary Kay Andrews novel. Rather, the friendship between protagonists Kayla and Zorie is destructive and often brutal, leading them from one bad situation to ever-worsening ones. The friendship that drives the story is vital and darkly fascinating with its roiling pathologies.
There is a lot packed into the 320 pages of this absorbing novel. The book combines the emotional manipulations and gaslighting of a twisty psychological thriller with the action of a sharply wrought on-the-road “ride or die” adventure. The part set in New Orleans has a haunting Southern Gothic vibe. And Kayla gives readers an intriguing dose of the unreliable narrator. Author Christina Dotson combines these various elements and techniques into a unique and compulsively readable novel, with mordant humor and captivating main characters.
Best friends since first grade, Zorie and Kayla bring out the worst in each other. As kids and teens, they make outstandingly bad choices. We’re not talking about innocent kid-stuff like skipping school, but things like setting a bed on fire while a person is in it, or breaking into and trashing a wedding venue so badly they end up serving a year in jail.
Once they are out, as convicted felons their job choices are limited, and they find themselves working as hotel maids in Georgia. Because their meager salaries barely pay their rent, they supplement that income by stealing presents at weddings they crash. At an antebellum-themed wedding, where they stand out as the only Black women, Zorie accidentally runs over a woman when trying to escape the predictable mayhem. Soon they are dubbed the “wedding crasher killers.” Zorie and Kayla flee, going from one tense and dangerous situation to even worse ones, aiming first for New Orleans and then for Mexico. Their “ride or die” is definitely action-packed with classic page-turner momentum.
At one point, Kayla refers to their desperate attempts at escaping capture as a “bootleg Thelma and Louise.” But unlike Thelma and Louise, who were sympathetic, likeable characters, Zorie and Kayla are neither (at least to this reviewer). One might have some sympathy for their plight given the shadows of sociopathic mental illness and their difficult childhoods. One might even find their devotion to each other to be likable, but fundamentally Zorie and Kayla are not admirable characters. They are, however, darkly fascinating. And that fascination drives the story nearly as much as the “what happens next?” and “how will they get out of this?” qualities.
There’s a good bit of gore in the story and a trail of murdered bodies. Zorie always has an excuse for the violence and neither woman seems capable of accepting that their incredibly bad choices are their responsibility.
Zorie is usually the force behind the bad choices. Kayla feels an obligation to protect her from herself, yet at an increasingly high cost. But that high cost, Kayla begins to understand, has always been part of the bargain. When Kayla won a scholarship to college, Zorie talked her out of it. When Kayla is in line for a promotion at the hotel where they are maids, Zorie costs Kayla both the promotion and her job.
It reflects the power and talent of author Dotson that she makes readers understand Kayla’s loyalty. The author’s training and experience as a social worker, no doubt, help her write such a powerful psychological drama. The pathologies of the two main characters are convincingly and smartly drawn. What is first bewildering about Zorie and Kayla’s relationship becomes believable as readers come to understand them both better.
All in all, Love You To Death is a terrific and absorbing read even with its central darkness. Riveting, action-packed as it is, the psychological drama is what makes this novel fascinating.
Christina Dotson
Christina Dotson is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who lives in Kentucky and holds an MSW from Western Kentucky University and an MS from Murray State University. She is a member of Crime Writers of Color and was a runner-up for the Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award.
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