At the start of Eliza Jane Brazier's wildly entertaining It Had to Be You, Eva and Jonathan meet on a night train from Florence to Paris; they have instant chemistry and sex on a luggage rack. They're both professional assassins, though they don't know the other's occupation. Eva also doesn't know that Jonathan was shot recently and has a still-bleeding bullet wound in his shoulder (he keeps his coat on and tells her not to touch him above the waist). The two are certain they will never meet again after the train ride, but they can't stop thinking about each other. Then Eva receives an assignment to terminate Jonathan, and if she fails, she will be eliminated.
With alternating chapters from both killers/lovers' points of view, Brazier achieves something incredible: she makes readers root for murderers. Eva's and Jonathan's wit and confidence mask their tragic childhoods, which cause them to believe that they're unworthy of love and that immersion in violence is necessary to anesthetize them to trauma. But with each other, they feel deeply understood and seen--with all their darkness--for the first time, which terrifies them. As Jonathan observes, "Love is going to get me killed, like I always feared it would." Amid Billy Wilder-esque banter and a plot paced like a speeding bullet, Brazier finds moments to depict Eva's and Jonathan's loneliness and longing for "normalcy," whatever that means.
It has to be them for each other, because nobody else would give them--and readers--such a thrill. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, reviewer and freelance editor at The Edit Ninja