Book Review: Kiss Slay Replay by Rachel Harrison

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Kiss Slay Replay
Author: Rachel Harrison
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: September 1, 2026
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Horror
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Every wedding guest’s worst nightmare is on repeat in this wild and twisty new horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of So Thirsty and Play Nice.

It’s the picture-perfect wedding The venue is dreamy, the weather is beautiful, love is in the air—and Willa Sullivan is having a bad time. She’s excited to celebrate her best friends finally having the big wedding they’ve always wanted, but this is the first time she’s seen her ex-fiancé in months, and he brought a date. Everything feels off, like she stumbled into an alternate universe. But things start to look up when Willa meets Danny, the groom’s charming and single childhood best friend. When they sneak off together, their rendezvous is interrupted by a masked killer terrorizing the reception. Willa and Danny fight to save the ones they love and survive the night, but the killer is unrelenting. A final girl, Willa is not.

Or is she? She wakes up and it’s the morning of the wedding. She just had the most intense nightmare of her life. Only as the day unfolds, there are some uncanny coincidences that make her question whether it was really a dream, déjà vu, or something more sinister. After a horrifying turn of events, Willa comes to understand that she’s stuck in a loop of carnage and terror that she must learn how to escape or else suffer a fate worse than death—being an eternal wedding guest.

Don’t be fooled by the cutesey (but bloody) cover — Kiss Slay Replay is not a light-hearted romp with a hint of horror. Instead, it’s a full-on horror nightmare, with an interesting mix of introspection and terror.

What’s worse than going to your best friends’ wedding, months after calling off your own wedding just three weeks in advance and then living in a quagmire of what-ifs, regrets, and second guessing? All of the above, but with slaughter!

Willa is dreading the wedding weekend, despite its charming rural lakeside location in the Hudson Valley. She’s happy for Steph and Jace, but being there will mean being with her college best friends, all of whom, some ten years later, seem to have found happiness and meaning in their lives. Meanwhile, Willa has just ended her own long-term relationship, feels isolated and directionless and questions every decision she’s made, and has to not only go celebrate her friends’ marriage, but also see her ex at the wedding.

She knows her friends are running out of patience with her, despite how much they love her. She just needs to get her act together long enough to get through the weekend. The rustic setting is gorgeous — a wedding venue that was once the location of a lakeside summer camp. (Uh oh…) When Willa escapes into the woods to give herself a break from the wedding intensity, she sees a strange masked man in the distance… or does she? Maybe the stress and alcohol are getting to her. Maybe she’s seeing things.

She isn’t. What feels like a typical horror movie scenario unfolds. The masked man is a terrifying slasher who attacks the wedding (where, of course, there’s no cell reception, no one is armed, and everyone is too drunk to defend themselves). It’s awful… and (not really a spoiler) ends with Willa herself being murdered.

Except not. Because after a painful death, Willa wakes up back in her own bed, fully aware of everything that just happened. But when she checks her phone, it’s Friday again — the day she woke up and drove to the wedding. Checking in with her friends, she allows herself to be convinced that she had an incredibly vivid nightmare, and sets off for the wedding… only to arrive and see how it’s all exactly the same as it was in her supposed dream.

But things don’t go exactly the same way… and I won’t go into further detail, other than to say that Willa is really and truly caught in a time loop, and that each new version of the wedding day features a brand new type of carnage, mayhem, and death.

Kiss Slay Replay is the trippiest of time loop stories. I’ve read a bunch with a rom-com focus, which this most assuredly is not. Instead, Willa experiences horror trope after horror trope, but in a visceral, terrifying way, always ending in her painful, sometimes disgusting death, as well as the deaths of all of her friends. Stuff of nightmares for sure!

At the same time, Willa is deeply mired in the self-doubt and inner paralysis stemming from her break-up. She knew things with Ravi weren’t working, and hadn’t been for a long time. Calling off the wedding was the right thing to do — but she feels that she’s come adrift in her own life, and sees no point in anything. Starting over is awful. Feeling like a burden to her supportive friends makes her tired and upset. As her friend Cass tells her, the only way out is through… but Willa can’t see her life ever truly changing or how things will get better.

When will I know if I’ve made it out of the loop? At the stroke of midnight? Tomorrow morning? Never? Am I going to spend the next week, month, year, the rest of my life waiting for another monster to show up? Wondering what horror lurks in the shadows?

It occurs to me, that’s actually not so different from how I’ve been living Preemptively experiencing misery. Ye of little faith.

The time loop horror serves as a bloody representation of Willa’s inner life. Give up, or fight? Persevere, even though every day is terrible? Can she hide from the horror, or will it find her anyway? What if this is all life is?

The introspective moments in no way slow down the momentum of Kiss Slay Replay. From the moment I started, I simply couldn’t put it down. At first, I assumed each time loop would bring back the slasher, which I was kind of dreading, as slasher movies/books are not my favorites by a long shot. But no — while each day unveils some fresh hell, none of the horror scenarios repeat. Each is horrifying and terrifying in its own way. And while it’s amazing that Willa doesn’t just give up, we also get a vivid example of what happens on a day when she decides not to go to the wedding. (Hint: It’s not good).

Rachel Harrison’s novels are always a delight, and she never fails to produce a twisted take on what might at first glance seem like a familiar horror sub-genre (witches, haunted houses, vampires, and more). This author is a masterful storyteller, and her unique characters and premises make for compelling reads, every single time.

Kiss Slay Replay is not for the faint of heart, obviously. But if you enjoy horror and want something that will hook you from start to finish, don’t miss this newest (terrifying) gem.

Purchase links: Amazon – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.

21Jun2026

Audiobook Review: Time Loops & Meet Cutes by Jackie Lau

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Time Loops & Meet Cutes
Author: Jackie Lau
Narrators: Cindy Kay & Raymond J. Lee
Publisher: Atria
Publication date: May 6, 2025
Print length: 339 pages
Audio length: 9 hours 15 minutes
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

The “masterful, inspiring, and full of heart” (Ali Hazelwood, New York Times bestselling author) Jackie Lau returns with a thoroughly unique love story about a woman reliving the same Friday over and over again—and the intriguing man who can’t quite remember her.

Noelle Tom really shouldn’t have eaten those dumplings at the night market. But the old lady at the stall said they’d give her what she needed most, and what Noelle desperately needed after another long workweek was food.

Except now she’s reliving the same Friday over and over. Every morning her alarm goes off at 6:45 no matter what, the Wordle answer is always “happy,” and she watches a silly squirrel video go viral day after day. And no matter how much she works on the same proposal, it’s always erased when she wakes up. It seems Monday will never come in this workaholic’s worst nightmare.

Noelle has no idea how being trapped in a time loop is the “thing she needed most,” especially now that everything seems meaningless. Sure, three fancy meals in a row is a fun treat, but it’s getting repetitive. Noelle’s not sure what lesson the old lady was trying to impart. Even a trip to the dumpling stall doesn’t help…because there’s no sign of it.

But then she meets a young woman who also ate the dumplings, and good-looking Cam, who appears in multiple places on her Friday. While he seems to have no memory of their encounters, there are signs he might be the key to getting un-stuck. But Noelle will have to put work aside and live a little in order to make him notice her. As their flirtation progresses, Noelle begins to worry that if she ever gets to turn the calendar page, Cam won’t know who she is and her life may never return to what it was before that fateful Friday…

In Time Loops & Meet Cutes, Noelle’s life revolves around work, even though she never gets the recognition she deserves and seems to constantly be the last to leave the office, staying late to clean up other people’s projects. She lives frugally, despite a decent salary as a mechanical engineer, denying herself any indulgences in order to make sure her savings will see her through whatever the future might hold. After a painful breakup years earlier, she’s also sworn off relationships, and she’s not terribly good at staying in touch with old friends either.

On a Friday in June — June 20th to be exact — Noelle is so hungry after yet another long day at work that she stops at a night market on the way home to grab a bite to eat, and stops at a dumpling stand with a hand-written sign and no line. The charming older woman behind the counter tells her that these dumplings will give her what she needs most — and give how starving she is, their deliciousness seems to do the trick.

The next morning, Noelle’s alarm goes off at 6:45, which is weird since it’s the weekend. And then the Wordle is the same as the previous day’s — huh, an odd glitch? But as the day progresses, Noelle realizes that it’s June 20th again… and so is the next day, and the next, and the next. As hard as it seems to believe, Noelle is forced to accept that she’s stuck in a time loop, and has no idea why or — more importantly — how to get out of it.

It’s amazing how many possibilities there are in a single day. You can quit your job… or not. You can go to Vancouver and feel the rain on your skin. You can eat three types of dumplings and get sprayed by a skunk when you go hunting for ghosts in a cemetery.

On the bright side, she learns that each day is a clean slate, so she can splurge on a fancy meal or new haircut, and all will be reset when she wakes up once again on June 20th — no damage to her bank account or credit card, no long-lasting remorse if she decides the pixie cut really isn’t for her. When she keeps running into a very attractive man named Cam, who seems to recognize her without knowing why, she decides that he might be the key to escaping the time loop. Could it be like a fairy tale, where true love’s kiss has the power to break a spell? But beyond escape, Noelle starts to enjoy these daily first meetings with Cam, especially since there are no consequences that last more than a day — so if she makes a stupid joke or does something especially cringe-worthy, it’ll just get wiped away by the next morning.

But as Noelle continues to “meet” Cam, over and over again, and goes on a series of lovely first dates with him, it starts to feel like not enough. She’s developing feelings, and he seems to respond in a way that shows that something’s pulling him toward her — but she can’t truly connect with someone she has to meet again for the first time every time she sees him.

I was surprised by how utterly charming I found Time Loops & Meet Cutes. The why and how of the time loop is much less important than the fact of it. Noelle meets another woman, Avery, who’s stuck in the same loop, and their friendship offers them both companionship and a sense of normalcy in an incredibly abnormal situation. As Noelle and Avery navigate the ways in which their June 20ths are similar and different, we get a clear-eyed view of why it might be wonderful to experience certain things over and over again for the first time… and how awful it would be to repeat the worst moments too.

The story offers powerful examples of how people can stagnate in safe or predictable lives, and how taking chances can lead to moments that can change the future. Noelle doesn’t become a new person overnight, but over the course of the many months she spends in the loop, she’s able to experience the outcomes of various “what if” moments, which help her see that good things can come from taking chances, as well as the value in being honest and repairing family relationships that she’d once just accepted as being unpleasant.

The romance is sweet and often funny, as Noelle and Cam have first date after first date, each one a bit different. At first, Noelle sticks to a sort of script in her flirting, knowing that Cam responds positively to certain jokes… but as she gains confidence and starts to know him better, she’s able to behave more naturally and enjoy their moments together.

The resolution of the time loop offers fresh problems and dilemmas which are quite interesting. Noelle has to adjust to yet another new reality, one in which she doesn’t get a clean slate each day. Can she still be bold and try new things — and try to connect with Cam — when her actions will carry over to tomorrow?

The audiobook narrators (one for Noelle, one for Cam) do a terrific job bringing the characters to life and showing their personalities and senses of humor. Most chapters are told through Noelle’s perspective, but the Cam chapters are a nice way to break up the sound of the story and add another viewpoint to these decidedly unusual events.

Time Loops & Meet Cutes is a fun, upbeat story with plenty of introspective and sensitive moments too. The big-picture plot points are outlandish, but seeing the time loop play out in relatively ordinary people’s lives makes it all feel relatable… and highly entertaining.

I’ve read several of author Jackie Lau’s previous books, and always enjoy her well-written characters, interesting narratives, and seriously amazing food moments! I recommend Time Loops & Meet Cutes for anyone who appreciates a rom-com with heart — and a very quirky premise.

For more by Jackie Lau:
Donut Fall in Love
The Stand-Up Groomsman
Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie

Purchase links: Amazon – Audible audiobook – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.