Shirlene Obuobi
At a glance
A stay-up-all-night, smart, spicy romance following a doctor who finds herself falling for an alluring, much-younger man with a deadly secret
Sean’s not in the market for love. The only female, let alone Black, interventional cardiologist at her hospital, she’s watched too many of her male colleagues divorce their first wives to marry younger models—and then there’s the abusive relationship she’s spent the better part of her early 30s healing from. Her passions are reserved for her best friend, her goddaughter, and her job.
Then she meets Julian. Brooding, beautiful and eleven years her junior. In short: A bad idea.
Julian pursues her in a way that sets off alarm bells in her mind, but she finds herself unable to resist their undeniable chemistry—even starts fantasizing about him in dreams that feel altogether too real. They also have a lot in common despite their age gap. So, to hell with it: If men can date younger, why can’t she? But the more Sean gets to know him, the more impossible Julian seems: He has a depth and sorrow to him that’s beyond his years, and sometimes there’s a look in his eyes that’s less than human, and leaves her feeling more like prey. Plus, Sean herself has been exhibiting odd symptoms—memory lapses, a lack of restraint that’s unlike her, persistent exhaustion—that all trace back to Julian, making Sean feel more than a little afraid. Who—or what—is she falling, irrevocably, in love with?
Extraordinarily transfixing, suspenseful, and addictive, Die for Me is nothing short of a seduction.
"Obuobi’s latest is a sleek and gripping tale of temptation and seduction that begs to be finished in one sitting. Obuobi puts her own twist on a classic monster romance, with an older, more formidable heroine who is neither clumsy nor simpering but entirely relatable. She dedicates her book to “Black girls who squinted at the pages of the paranormal romances of the early aughts, wishing to see themselves there,” breathing new life into a well-trodden genre. A thrilling, sexy, and modern take on forbidden fruit."
- Kirkus, starred review 🌟
"Die For Me is bold, edgy, and hypnotic. It lures you into its dark and intoxicating world from the very first page. Sean and Julian are a roller-coaster ride that I couldn’t predict and never wanted to end, and Obuobi’s voice is crystal clear. Stunning."
- Lyla Sage, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"A sexy, sultry romance with a horror-tinged, action-filled climax….Intense, page-turning, and at times funny…Die For Me will enthrall readers."
- Booklist, starred review 🌟
The Grand Ballroom of the Edison Mansion is a study in gold: gold velvet curtains, gold pillars, gold candelabras from which amber-colored flames flicker and flare. Brandon Pendersen, my colleague and fellow Broadview Hospital lifer, fits right in with a gold satin tie that matches his new wife Leila’s golden beach waves. I still remember his first wedding, fifteen years ago, under a sagging drop ceiling in the basement of Chicago’s city hall — Brandon in an ill-fitting navy suit, Winona, his ex-wife and my best friend, in a vintage tea-length dress she’d thrifted from Goodwill two weeks earlier. They’d had nothing between them but five hundred thousand dollars in student loans, thirty cumulative hours of sleep that week, and a promise to love each other forevermore… which Brandon broke two years ago when he fell in lust-love with the twenty-something-year-old device rep with whom he is currently swaying to Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect.”
Under the table, I text Winona.
Winny. You sure it’s okay for me to be here? It feels wrong.
Winny’s response is immediate.
Of course I’m sure. I asked you to go. And besides, Sophie needs an ally out there.
My eyes flicker to Sophie, Winny’s twelve-year-old daughter, who is sitting at the head table in a burgundy cap-sleeved dress and examining her black fingernails with the determination of a preteen who can be forced to sit still but not to put on a show.
Well, if it’s any comfort, Brandon’s hairline looks like someone drew it on with a marker.
Die for Me is addictive, seductive, and hot as all hell, the Black feminist paranormal romance we didn’t realize we needed.
Sean is a total badass: the only Black woman interventional cardiologist at her workplace, fielding endless micro- (and macro-) aggressions to forge a career in an industry that often doesn’t have space for her. She’s gotten here by always making the responsible choice, living her life totally by the book—so when she meets Julian, a much-younger, impossibly handsome stranger, she figures that maybe this time, she can let herself have a little fun for once. Plenty of her male peers date much younger women—why shouldn’t she get some arm candy of her own?
But things quickly spiral out of hand, and soon Sean is making choices that are downright foolish. Julian has more than a couple red flags: his inexplicably high-profile career and mysterious past, the way violence and death seem to follow wherever he goes. Not to mention the strangely vivid recurring dreams (nightmares?) Sean keeps having, or the way that, as soon as things get serious, Julian abruptly disappears.
Bad idea, right? In the immortal words of Olivia Rodrigo: f*** it, it’s fine.
Discussion of domestic abuse, mention of miscarriage.
3/5 open door.
