Here Lie All the Boys Who Broke My Heart Summary: Deadly Journal
TL;DR: The Journal That Became a Hit List
Sloane Sawyer has a private ritual for heartbreak. Whenever a boy breaks her heart, she opens a leather journal, pours a glass of wine, and writes him a fictional eulogy. The pages stay hidden. The boys stay alive.
That arrangement collapses at the start of her senior year at Pembroke College.
In Here Lie All the Boys Who Broke My Heart, Emma Simmerman places a young woman’s most private coping mechanism at the center of a campus murder investigation.
One by one, the ex-boyfriends named in the journal begin dying in real life, each death accompanied by a photocopied page of Sloane’s own writing.
The question is not whether someone is reading her journal, but who.
- Premise: A college senior’s secret heartbreak journal becomes the blueprint for a string of real murders.
- Setting: Pembroke College in Massachusetts, plus Boston, Nantucket, Bloomfield, and a rival campus at Ivy Gate University.
- Protagonist: Sloane Sawyer, an English major under police suspicion.
- Key trope: A fake-dating arrangement with Asher McCavern that doubles as an investigation.
- Core themes: Grief, envy inside friendship, complicity, guilt, and reclaiming your own story.
- Tone: Snarky and fast, then increasingly paranoid and claustrophobic.
Here Lie All the Boys Who Broke My Heart Summary
Spoiler warning: this section covers the plot, the killer, and the ending.
Senior year opens with bad news. Sloane Sawyer learns that Jonah, her high school boyfriend, has died in a car accident.
She drives to a local park and burns his page from her leather journal, the one where she wrote him a eulogy after he broke her heart.
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Days later she attends a fraternity party at Ivy Gate University. Her freshman-year ex, Ryan Austi, falls from a third-floor balcony and dies.
Then comes the text that changes everything. A photocopied page of Ryan’s eulogy was found in his pocket. Detective Grange of the Boston Police Department questions Sloane and places her under suspicion.
Sloane checks her hiding place. The journal is gone. She suspects her former English professor, Miles Holland, with whom she had an affair the previous year. He resigned over it, and he was the only person who knew the journal existed.
Before she can act, Asher McCavern catches her trying to destroy evidence. He offers help with conditions.
Asher wants Sloane to fake-date him so his cousin Wesley, her long-time crush, will get jealous. The goal is to push Wes into turning down the family ski resort in Colorado so Asher can inherit it. Sloane agrees, and the two begin investigating together.
The deaths keep pace with the journal. Marco St. James, a restaurant owner and ex-boyfriend, dies in a fire at his own restaurant. His eulogy is found under his windshield wiper.
Next is Bryce Peterson, a Sig Chi ex. At a secret party hosted by the Knights of Pembroke, he is found impaled with a sword and his blood-stained eulogy attached to him.
Then Graham Monterra, a fine-art major, is shot dead at his Boston gallery opening. His eulogy is taped over one of his paintings. A handgun is later planted in Sloane and Asher’s hotel room.
Overwhelmed, Sloane gives the planted weapon to Detective Grange and confesses everything about the journal. Police arrest Miles Holland after finding a manuscript in his office that details the murders. Miles insists he was framed.
The violence does not stop. Sloane and her coworker and ex, Tristan Brent, are locked inside the walk-in freezer at Cantine, the wine bar where they work. Both survive, but Tristan’s eulogy is taped to the freezer door, proving the killer is still free.
Spring break takes the friend group to the McCavern family beach house on Nantucket. Sloane and Wes finally admit their feelings and start dating.
After a fight with Wes, Sloane sleeps with Asher, giving in to the tension that built during their fake relationship.
A storm rolls in. Wes is lured to the glass-walled attic room and stabbed.
Sloane rushes upstairs and finds him bleeding. Then the attic door locks behind her. Her best friend, Annica Labrant, is standing there with a gun and a printed copy of Wes’s eulogy.
Annica confesses. She found the journal at the start of the school year and read to the very end, where she saw Wesley’s name. Envy had been building for years, over Sloane escaping consequences, drawing attention, and breaking Annica’s one explicit rule about Wes.
Annica engineered every death to destroy Sloane’s life and frame her for murder. She forces Sloane onto the outdoor balcony, planning to stage the death as a guilt-ridden suicide.
Police burst into the attic before she can fire. Annica is shot and killed.
Wes survives his injuries. He and Sloane agree they are better as friends. Emma Simmerman then delivers a second betrayal.
Shortly before graduation, Sloane learns that Asher knew about Annica early on. He had agreed to scan and distribute the journal pages as a prank in exchange for Annica persuading Wes to decline the resort.
When Annica actually killed Ryan, Asher stayed silent out of fear of being charged as an accomplice.
Sloane throws the journal at him, cuts all ties, and refuses his apologies.
On graduation day, Sloane starts writing a full-length book instead of eulogies. She titles it Here Lie All the Boys Who Broke My Heart.
A final chapter shifts to Asher’s perspective. At the airport, about to fly to Colorado, he takes a call from Sloane. She says, “I need to know everything.” Asher cancels his departure and turns back.
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Who Populates This Book
| Character | Role |
|---|---|
| Sloane Sawyer | Senior English major at Pembroke College who writes fictional eulogies for boys who break her heart. |
| Annica Labrant | Sloane’s best friend and roommate, revealed as the killer targeting Sloane’s ex-boyfriends. |
| Asher McCavern | Wes’s cousin and a piano player who fake-dates Sloane and helped distribute the journal pages. |
| Wesley (Wes) McCavern | Sloane’s long-time crush, Asher’s cousin, and the final name in the journal. |
| Danielle (Dani) Montgomery | Nursing major in the friend group who cares for the others. |
| Jonah | Sloane’s high school boyfriend, killed in a car accident before the story begins. |
| Ryan Austi | Sloane’s Ivy Gate ex-boyfriend, pushed from a third-floor balcony. |
| Marco St. James | Restaurant-owner ex-boyfriend who dies in a fire at his own restaurant. |
| Bryce Peterson | Fraternity ex-boyfriend impaled with a sword at a campus society party. |
| Graham Monterra | Artist ex-boyfriend shot at his Boston gallery opening. |
| Tristan Brent | Sloane’s coworker and ex, locked with her in a walk-in freezer. |
| Professor Miles Holland | Former English professor who had an affair with Sloane and is arrested for the murders. |
| Detective Grange | Boston police detective investigating the deaths linked to the journal. |
| Claire Sawyer | Sloane’s younger sister, a dancer crowned homecoming queen. |
| Adrienne | Sloane’s cousin and roommate who had a brief fling with Miles Holland. |
| Marissa Wilder | Wes’s sorority girlfriend and a true-crime TikToker. |
| Charlie, Sam, and Jake | Core members of the college friend group. |
| Kate Holland (Russel) | Miles’s pregnant ex-wife and an interior designer suspected of planting the gun. |
Quotes from Here Lie All the Boys Who Broke My Heart
“When someone breaks my heart, I get out my journal and a bottle of wine and I write him a eulogy.” — Sloane Sawyer (Prologue)
“You’re going to ace all of your classes this year. You’re not going to get into trouble. You won’t let any boys get to you. You’re going to write your first book.” — Sloane Sawyer (Chapter 3)
“You know, just because you made a few bad decisions doesn’t make you a bad person.” — Wesley McCavern (Chapter 2)
“There are seven eulogies in the journal.” — Sloane Sawyer (Chapter 11)
“I’m going to tell you something, Asher, and you better promise me on your life that you will not repeat it.” — Sloane Sawyer (Chapter 10)
“Imagine my surprise when I got to the end and saw Wesley’s name. God, I was furious. After I specifically asked you not to!” — Annica Labrant (Chapter 31)
“I won’t write a eulogy for everyone who broke my heart this year. I will write a whole damn book.” — Sloane Sawyer (Chapter 33)
Books Like Here Lie All the Boys Who Broke My Heart
One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus — A group of students falls under suspicion after private secrets surface during a death investigation, mirroring the framed-protagonist structure here.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson — A student-led investigation built on secret records and betrayals inside a close peer group.
The Maidens by Alex Michaelides — A dark campus suspense novel involving academic obsession, a secret society, and murders connected to one central figure.
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio — A collegiate whodunit about hidden jealousy and a death inside a tight-knit friend group.
My Murder by Katie Williams — A darkly comic mystery that mixes relationship drama with a protagonist untangling deaths tied to her own past.
Book Details at a Glance
- Genre & Subgenre: New Adult Fiction / Dark Romantic Comedy / Mystery Suspense Thriller
- Core Narrative Tropes: Fake dating, love triangle, deadly journal or secret hit list, whodunit, framed protagonist, the best friend as villain
- Tone & Atmosphere: Sarcastic and collegiate, then increasingly paranoid and suspenseful
- Primary Conflict: Sloane must clear her name and identify a killer targeting her ex-boyfriends while managing guilt, toxic relationships, and romantic entanglements
- Pacing Style: Fast and episodic, alternating between social events, romantic tension, police investigation, and murder set-pieces
- Book Structure: Prologue, 34 chapters (Chapters 1–33 narrated by Sloane, Chapter 34 by Asher), acknowledgments, and an about the author section
- Publisher: Avon
- Publication Date: February 3, 2026
- ISBN-10: 0063459760
- ISBN-13: 978-0063459762
- Pages: 384
