Eliza Serpan is a bourbon guzzling, machete wielding, antisocial mortician who has an uncanny knack for putting on the best funerals in the U.K. But when she is faced with a sudden series of terrifying events that pit her against the darkest of the occult, Eliza discovers that making death look good isn’t her only talent. Even with all odds stacked against her mortal soul, Eliza is determined to be nothing less than a force to be reckoned with. Because after all—you should never underestimate a woman who can embalm.
3.5
I received a copy of this novel in return for an honest review
"It's a macabre book mobile!" Phineas and Ferb
I was really intrigued with the concept of this novel. You know me, love a good morgue. The first few paragraphs drew me in and then the author gives an info dump before the end of the first page. I know we need to know about Lindley, but it could have waited.
However within that first chapter I found something out that was lovely. Eliza is a beautiful kind of disturbing hard core bitch. So no matter any issues I had with this novel the character was great!! Plus her back story is fairly interesting, especially the part about her dead Grandpa. Her emotions are written in a very real way. She reacted just like you would think a real person would in many of the awful situations, like during a heavy betrayal.
I appreciated that the author did her research about funeral homes and the embalming process. I've worked in a funeral home so this sort of accuracy really made me respect the author's story telling ability.
Trigger Warning: many many MANY suicides.
This book was written pretty well, some formatting issues, a few teeny tiny grammatical errors that were easy to over look.
The characters, asides from Eliza, were hit or miss for me. The evil grandmother spewing family secrets to a grand daughter she barely knows 50 pages in? Eh, didn't care for that. Marcus and Lindley? AWESOME. I would LOVE to have seen more of both of them. Wolf was a pretty bland character, not quite great as a love interest and mainly used for purpose and bringing together all the plot lines.
Several of the plot twists were pretty obvious and I wish the murder mystery hadn't been solved so quickly or with so many easy coincidences.
I'm not sure what category to put this book in: horror, ghost story, murder mystery... Probably Urban Paranormal Fantasy. I wish the author had really committed to just one genre.
I loved how the author wrote the ghostly and otherworldly stuff. She managed to make the writing creepy and cool. Makes me wonder if she has ever had an experience herself.
Not sure I cared for the last plot twist and the diabolic turn the novel takes, but it kept me intrigued and over all I enjoyed this novel and would read more by this author.
I do have one question however:
How'd she get a machete through customs?