They Never Learn
  • Published: 8 July 2025
  • ISBN: 9781529967760
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $26.00
Categories:

They Never Learn

Formats & editions
Paperback
8 Jul 2025
EBook
3 Jul 2025
Audiobook
3 Jul 2025
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The queer feminist serial killer novel of the summer. They Never Learn is about good women who kill very bad men and get away with it – for fans of Bella Mackie and dark academia

'Deliciously dark, razor-sharp, and unapologetically wrong in all the right ways' C.J. Skuse, author of SWEETPEA

He wasn’t afraid of me. That was his first mistake.

Read the cult word-of-mouth hit readers are obsessed with:

‘Such an incredible read!’
‘Holy hell this book was fun!’
‘Included all the things I like in fiction…vigilantism/revenge, cold, calculating women, themes of obsession, queer desire’
‘Amazing twists!’
‘You guys NEED TO READ THIS!’


Scarlett Clark is an exceptional English professor and an even better serial killer. She’s made it her mission in life to track down predatory men on campus and kill them and she’s preparing for her biggest murder yet.

Carly Schiller is just trying to survive her freshman year at college – keeping her head down and focussing on work. But when her roommate Allison is assaulted at a party Carly becomes obsessed with making the attacker pay.

When police start investigating the spate of local deaths, Scarlett starts to realise it’s only a matter of time before her secret life is exposed and everything she’s built comes crashing down with it…

‘Deliciously satisfying… The feminist revenge thriller we need and deserve’ Megan Collins

‘A gorgeously-written ragestorm of a thriller…will shock readers as much as it satisfies them’ Wendy Heard

‘Grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go’ Samantha Downing
  • Published: 8 July 2025
  • ISBN: 9781529967760
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $26.00
Categories:

About the author

Layne Fargo

Layne Fargo writes dark, dramatic stories that support women’s rights—and also women’s wrongs. She’s the author of psychological thrillers They Never Learn and Temper, co-author of the #1 bestselling Audible Original series Young Rich Widows (coming to paperback in spring 2024), and co-creator of the Unlikeable Female Characters podcast on Lit Hub Radio. Her first work of women’s fiction The Favorites is forthcoming from Chatto & Windus in January 2025.
Before becoming a full-time writer, Layne worked as a dramaturg, a librarian, and a corporate knowledge manager, and she still loves going down a good research rabbit hole. She lives in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood with a rescue pit bull and cat who are best friends, the only man she never wants to murder (well, almost never), and way too many books.

portrait photo of Layne Fargo

Also by Layne Fargo

The Favourites
Desperate Deadly Widows
Young Rich Widows
See all

Praise for They Never Learn

Grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go

Samantha Downing

Will delight revenge aficionados everywhere

Booklist

A fierce, feminist suspense… Spectacular and propulsive

Samantha M. Bailey

Darkly hypnotic and intensely compulsive. This is a psychological thriller of the highest order, a story that seeps into your thoughts like blood through floorboards

Criminal Element

Deliciously satisfying… The feminist revenge thriller we need and deserve

Megan Collins

A gorgeously-written ragestorm of a thriller…will shock readers as much as it satisfies them

Wendy Heard

They Never Learn is deliciously dark, razor-sharp, and unapologetically wrong in all the right ways. Layne Fargo crafts a story that feels like sweet revenge and brutal justice all wrapped up in one delicious gulp. A must-read for anyone who believes in women’s wrongs as much as I do

C. J. Skuse, author of SWEETPEA