Love Me Stalk Me

Bishop debuts with a ludicrous dark romance set in a luxury Manhattan department store. Monarch’s gorgeous new head of security, Callahan “Cal” Knight, an ex-military badass brought in to handle the threat of organized retail crime, is hyperbolically obsessed with hyper-competent store manager Izzy Russo from the moment he first sees her. His logical next step is to hack her phone. This happens to coincide with Izzy downloading an AI boyfriend app looking for the intimacy she’s not getting from her emotionally abusive boyfriend. She programs the robot to be possessive, supportive, and confident, and bases its avatar on Cal—which Cal takes as a green light to step in. What follows is a twisted take on You’ve Got Mail as the pair grow closer both in real life and on the app, where Izzy shares her sexual fantasies. Every other man that Izzy crosses paths with, save for her rowdy Italian brothers, is cartoonishly misogynistic in comparison to Cal, who worships and respects Izzy (just not her privacy) and repeatedly comes to her rescue, including from an attempted rape. Bishop never meaningfully reckons with Cal’s violation: a late reveal lets him entirely off the hook for his stalking. Add in mind-numbingly repetitious prose and a final twist that’s telegraphed too early, and this misses the mark. (Dec.)