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Title details for Bless Your Heart by Lindy Ryan - Wait list

Bless Your Heart

A Novel

#1 in series

by Lindy Ryan
Stephanie Németh-Parker
Audiobook
0 of 2 copies available
Wait time: About 3 weeks
Place a hold Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
0 of 2 copies available
Wait time: About 3 weeks

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
A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Bless Your Heart

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 9, 2024

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781250332615
      • File size: 320863 KB
      • Duration: 11:08:26

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      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.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Stephanie Nemeth-Parker speaks with a Southern accent in this audiobook, which takes place in southeast Texas. In 1999, four generations of Evans women run the only funeral parlor in town. When people suddenly begin rising from the dead, it's time for Evans matriarchs Ducey, Lenore, and Grace to tell teenager Luna about the family business. Nemeth-Parker voices the Evans women so that each sounds age appropriate and can be clearly identified. Her drawn-out exhalations when the dead speak make them delightfully eerie, while her deliberate mouth sounds for the coroner will make listeners as uncomfortable with him as the characters are. Best of all, her vocal choices for all the suspects give nothing away about who is actually causing all the mayhem. S.S. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      September 13, 2024

      Ryan's debut horror mystery is as charming as it is gory. The Evans women have owned the funeral parlor in their small southeast Texas town for generations. With four Evans around--15-year-old Luna and her mother Grace, her grandmother Lenora, and her great-grandmother Ducey--it's business as usual. That is, until the body of the town gossip reanimates at the parlor, and their neighbors start going missing. Now Luna knows the real reason they own a funeral parlor: to protect the town from the restless dead. But that's not the only family secret, and as more bodies turn up, the Evans women will have to uncover the secrets they buried long ago. Stephanie N�meth-Parker exhibits superb range in this dialogue-heavy story. Each character's voice is impressively distinguishable, from Ducey sucking on caramel candies to the lip-smacking, slow-talking coroner and the rasping cries of the reanimated dead. VERDICT This campy and creepy debut full of Southern charm includes a cast of distinctive characters enhanced by the audio experience. Ryan hits the sweet spot of combining horror and mystery with humor that will attract a wide variety of listeners, including ones who may not think they enjoy horror.--Meghan Bouffard

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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