#TBRChallenge 2026: Bad Date

The Book: Bad Date by Ellery Lloyd

The Particulars: Thriller short story (58 pages), Amazon Original Stories, 2025, Digital Only

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: I subscribe to Amazon Prime, which means I can take part in Amazon's monthly First Reads program. Sometimes a bonus short story is included, of which this was one back in August 2025. 

The Review: So, it finally happened. After six years, which included the height of the pandemic when I was regularly still reporting to the office, I finally caught COVID. I have no experience but from what I can gather it's largely been a mild case. Spiked a fever at one point, but things seem isolated to general fatigue and feeling like I have a very bad sinus cold / virus. But this development, on top of the fact that I'm in the reading slump from hell, has meant I was fully expecting to miss my own TBR Challenge deadline - which just looks bad for the hostess even though I always tell everyone that this Challenge is meant to be "low stress."  Well folks, that's why Baby Jesus invented short stories and novellas. So I went diving into my Kindle app and dug up this short story (58 pages!) that fit this month's The Hunt theme perfectly.  The official blurb is as follows:

Fay Roper is a divorced single mom and a globally famous actress. She’s also unlucky in love. Maybe because the last thing Fay wants in a man is yet another superfan. But somehow, every time she has a boyfriend who isn’t a stalker, he abruptly disappears from her life. With the help of her best friend and right-hand woman, Poppy, Fay decides to change the game and join an exclusive new dating app under a false identity. A subscriber named Oliver takes the bait. But Oliver likes to play games too. And only one of them can win.

What the blurb leaves out? Fay's acting career is well past skidding into a ravine. Looking to make over her former child-star image she took on more "serious" roles, which were not kindly received. Her first marriage, to an older and abusive fading action star, ended in divorce and she got sole custody of their son Wolf. Through it all is Poppy, her BFF and personal assistant who is helping her navigate the dating app waters which they are using for fodder for their podcast series (because, of course). But it soon becomes clear that there's more here than meets the eye. Fay and Poppy have ulterior motives, as does her latest "match" Oliver. The question is, which hunter will come out on top?

The way the authors (this is a husband and wife team) lay out the story is rather clever. As the reader you immediately know not to take anything at face value and the authors keep you on the line by dropping little juicy breadcrumbs to reveal more behind everyone's various motives. The problem? None of these people are terribly likeable. Poppy the personal assistant is probably as close as we get, but even she's sticking her head in the sand about a lot. Ultimately the character we're expecting to get their comeuppance gets it, but there's still a rather disconcerting realization that while that "bad person" is dealt with, another character who has committed MULTIPLE MURDERS is just allowed to have that all swept under the rug. It's the stuff horror movies are made of y'all - truly. 

So where does this leave me? Not terribly satisfied but there's enough juice in the writing of this short story that I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to trying a full-length suspense novel by these authors. That said, I'd walk into that experience likely a bit leery that the promise of a fully righted universe might not be forthcoming.

Final Grade = C-