A crackling mystery-horror novel with big-hearted characters and Southern charm with a bite, Bless Your Heart is a gasp-worthy delight from start to finish from debut author Lindy Ryan.
Rise and shine. The Evans women have some undead to kill.
It's 1999 in Southeast Texas and the Evans women, owners of the only funeral parlor in town, are keeping steady with...normal business. The dead die, you bury them. End of story. That's how Ducey Evans has done it for the last eighty years, and her progeny—Lenore the experimenter and Grace, Lenore's soft-hearted daughter, have run Evans Funeral Parlor for the last fifteen years without drama. Ever since That Godawful Mess that left two bodies in the ground and Grace raising her infant daughter Luna, alone.
But when town gossip Mina Jean Murphy's body is brought in for a regular burial and she rises from the dead instead, it's clear that the Strigoi—the original vampire—are back. And the Evans women are the ones who need to fight back to protect their town.
As more folks in town turn up dead and Deputy Roger Taylor begins asking way too many questions, Ducey, Lenore, Grace, and now Luna, must take up their blades and figure out who is behind the Strigoi's return. As the saying goes, what rises up, must go back down. But as unspoken secrets and revelations spill from the past into the present, the Evans family must face that sometimes, the dead aren't the only things you want to keep buried.
"A gloriously gruesome, compulsively readable debut that is as grizzly as it is clever and heartfelt." - Rachel Harrison
1 of 1 copy available
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Creators
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Series
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Publisher
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Release date
April 9, 2024 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781250888891
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781250888891
- File size: 2447 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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January 1, 2024
Ryan, founder of Black Spot Books and editor of the Stoker Award-nominated Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga, offers a vampire novel set in 1999 Texas, featuring the Evans women, owners of a funeral parlor who must take up their blades against vampires when bodies start rising from the dead. Prepub Alert.
Copyright 2023 Library Journal
Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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February 26, 2024
Rue Morgue contributor Ryan melds mystery, horror, and family drama in her sharp solo debut about the descent of ancient ghouls on a small Texas town. In the summer of 1999, the women of the Evans family—matriarch Ducey; her daughter, Lenore; her granddaughter, Grace; and her great-granddaughter, Luna—witness recently deceased busybody Mina Jean Murphy rise from the dead, setting off alarm bells in Ducey and Lenore’s heads: for the first time in 15 years, the bloodthirsty, undead strigoi (“sort of like zombies and vampires combined”) have returned to Southeast Texas. But why? As the number of strigoi multiplies and the sheriff starts asking questions, the elder Evans women reveal bits and pieces of family history to the younger ones. Before long, it becomes clear that they may be the only family in the region who are equipped to stop their new, blood-starved neighbors from sucking the state dry. Ryan lays the mythology on thick, relishing details big and small about both the strigoi and the Evans family, sometimes at the expense of brisk pacing. Still, it’s a pleasure to spend time in her carefully rendered world, and she packs plenty of bloodshed among the copious exposition. This has bite. (Apr.)Correction: An earlier version of this review misstated the author’s role at Rue Morgue and was missing part of a character’s name. -
March 15, 2024
The dead are rising again, and it is up to the Evans women to put things right in Ryan's horror-mystery series starter. It's 1999, and in their small southeast Texas town, where everybody knows everybody, the ravening ghouls have plenty of connections to prey on. The Evans ladies know all too well, having run the town's only funeral business for generations, that the monsters will only grow stronger with every soul taken. Complicating matters even more is the involvement of the local authorities: the sheriff has a long-simmering grudge against the Evans, and the deputy in charge of the investigation (into an increasing number of mutilated bodies) is smitten with the mother of the youngest member of the Evans household. Fifteen-year-old Luna was a baby the last time matters got seriously out of hand, and it is time for her to be introduced to the family's real business. But the Evans clan's history is full of secrets, especially when it comes to blood, and Luna is about to learn that her background is indeed very special. Incorporating just the right amount of Southern sass, this gruesomely descriptive yet heartrendingly poignant tale will leave horror fans hungry for the next installment.COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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