Tourist Season

Tourist Season falls under multiple genre categorizations. It is a work of contemporary romantic fiction that embraces elements of dark romance, but it can also be labeled as a thriller narrative. Works of dark romance “often explore darker themes, like abuse, captivity, and dubious consent. Dark romances don’t pull punches, either; many put trauma and suffering on the page,” rather than incorporating such elements into the characters’ backstories (Keys, Emily. “Defining Dark Romance.” The Romance Genre Specialist, 19 Jul. 2024). Such novels derive their central conflicts from narrative elements including violence, deception, betrayal, and rivalry.

Tourist Season is an enemies-to-lovers romance. This trope creates tension between the romantic counterparts, Harper Starling and Nolan Rhodes. Both of the characters are violent killers attempting to overcome their dark pasts by adopting the personas of the very people who have abused them. Their relationship is founded on hatred and obsession, as they both enter into a relationship with lies and secrets. These aspects of their dynamic create narrative tension and heighten the stakes of their complex intimacy. Even when Harper and Nolan start to fall for one another, they are never sure if they can trust each other.

The novel falls under the thriller genre classification because it derives its narrative propulsion from various murder mystery plot points and subplots. Thrillers are “a type of mystery” story which “tend to be action-packed, page-turners with moments full of tension, anxiety, and fear” (Dukes, Jessica. “What Is a Thriller?” Celadon Books). This is true of Tourist Season: The narrative is riddled with danger and anticipation, as Harper and Nolan try to avoid detection for their own crimes while Sam Porter tries to solve cold cases he believes occurred in Cape Carnage. He comes to town seeking answers to Autumn Bower’s disappearance and La Plume’s shadowy identity. Meanwhile, Harper is trying to conceal her involvement with the real Harper Starling’s death, her ties to Harvey Mead, and her work with Arthur Lancaster to eradicate pesky Carnage tourists. Nolan is similarly caught between various mysteries and crimes. While he hunts down Harper with the intention of killing her to avenge his late brother, he simultaneously tries to avoid police interest in his murderous past and to make sense of who Harper really is. Weaver folds the momentum and tension of a thriller into the emotional core of the dark romance genre.

Both dark romance and thriller novels embrace genre tropes, and tropes of the dark romance genre include revenge, blackmail, forced proximity, and kidnapping, among others. These tropes surface in Tourist Season, fueling the novel’s central mysteries, intensifying the lovers’ passionate affair, and augmenting the narrative stakes. Tourist Season also leans into the tropes of crime, conspiracy, and spy thriller subgenres. Weaver lightly subverts romance=genre expectations by casting stereotypical villains as her sympathetic protagonists, but as is true of recent contemporary dark romance and thriller trends in literature and cinema, the characters’ unlikable qualities are explained by their traumatic pasts. Harper and Nolan may be murderers, but their psychologies are manifestations of their encounters with abuse, pain, and loss, complicating their portrayal.

Tourist Season is in conversation with other contemporary dark romance and thriller novels. The novel is reminiscent of titles including Kat T. Masen’s Chasing Love (2020), Rita Kent’s Beautiful Venom (2025), and Karin Slaughter’s We Are All Guilty Here (2025).