Reviewed by Mal
TITLE: Don’t Shoot Me Santa
SERIES: To Love A Psycho #4
AUTHOR: CF White
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 370 Pages
RELEASE DATE: November 7, 2025
BLURB:
Only he decides who’s a good boy.
“I’m building you a place where you don’t have to choose between being strong or safe. You can be both. Or neither. You can just…be.”
Two years after escaping the legacy of his infamous serial killer parents, Aaron Jones has finally built something close to peace. A quiet cottage on the windswept Isle of Wight, a rescue dog named Chaos, a job using his behavioural skills, and, of course, a lover, Dr Kenneth Lyons, criminal psychologist, protector, and the only man who’s ever known exactly how to unravel him.
Their love is laced with rules. Trust. And surrender. It’s fragile, hard-won, and impossibly addictive.
But peace was never built to last. Not for them.
When a teenage boy is found murdered beneath the town’s Christmas lights, Kenny is called in to consult. As more bodies appear, each one draped in seasonal ritual and tied with blood-red ribbons, Aaron is dragged back into the darkness they both swore they’d left behind.
To protect the life they’ve built, Aaron agrees to every request Kenny makes. Even if it means offering more of himself and leaning deeper into the darker side of their love, where obedience is devotion, and surrender is the safest place he’s ever known.
But as the killer’s ritual unfolds, Kenny’s profile starts to mirror their own past too closely. And Aaron must face what he’s become under Kenny’s hands… and what he’s willing to do to keep him.
Because in the season of giving, some obsessions come wrapped in blood-red ribbons.
And only Santa decides who’s a good boy.
Don’t Shoot Me, Santa is the festive fourth book in the MM romantic thriller series, To Love a Psycho. Whilst it can be read as a Christmas standalone, it would be better experienced as part of the full series.
Please see author note for trigger warnings.
REVIEW:
I love CF White’s deeply intimate style of writing, there is no distant sharing of perspective even though it’s written in third person, micro emotions bleed out, vivid descriptive metaphorical language is used to enunciate the moment.
This story is beautifully laid out as juxtaposition between safety and terror – Kenny and Aaron strengthening their foundations shifting towards building safe spaces to thrive in and the killer on the loose who’s made a grotesque parody of the bones and bricks of the holiday.
Kenny and Aaron make you swoon and you’re edged right alongside them – this is a slowwww edgy precipice of of precisely built burn. This co-exists with the danger Will Robinson feeling permeating the mystery of the killer and peeling back of the history and utter sadness of the loss of a human being’s life. Kenny’s brilliance grips you as does Aaron’s passion and fire, the soft push at your heart for the animals needing care and the horror of what’s unfolding in the darkness in small towns.
That culmination was eerie, chaotic, fast but Aaron and Kenny remind you this is a romance at the heart of it, ahhhh i swooned.
And then back to being edged again by that epilogue CF White, the wait begins again.
I am obsessed with this series by CF White, highly recommend reading it. If you enjoy a dark MM romance, you’ll love this festive fourth book in the MM romantic thriller series, To Love a Psycho.
RATING: 
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