Thank you everyone for this early copy of Bless Your Heart by Lindy Ryan, in exchange for an honest review.

Honestly, I think I expected more from this book. I wanted more. I found the writing to be lacking, and a bit vague, and I needed more action from this story. Maybe I went in with my expectations too high

I absolutely loved this book!

The Evans women had me laughing throughout the book. They all have their own idiosyncracies that made them quite beloved characters in this story!

I kept turning the pages and didn’t want to put this down. I needed to know what was going to happen!

I am hoping there is a continuation of the Evans women. They deserve another book.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the arc of this book. All opinions are my own.

I will give my thoughts once SMP addresses their readers with an explanation. Until then, all my reviews will be withheld.

It’s 1999 in a small Texas town where the Evans women run the only funeral parlor around. Four generations of women, from tough-talking Ducey Evans to her teenage great-granddaughter Luna, are entrusted with burying the town’s dead – and making sure they stay buried. But sometimes the dead are restless and their reanimated corpses return as Strigoi, vampire-esque creatures hungry to feed on the living. And it’s up to the Evans women to fight back to protect their family and the whole town.

I was pleasantly entertained by this quirky multiple POV story. It’s a little hard to describe, it’s like if you took paranormal Southern Gothic but made it cozy. That’s not to say there’s no gore, as there are definitely some descriptive blood-and-guts moments, but I’d describe it as light horror, perfect for readers who are newer to the genre. The relationships between the four women gave the story a lot of heart. The late 90s pop culture references are on point and were a lot of fun for this Gen X-er. This book would be perfect for fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and books by Grady Hendrix and Charlaine Harris.

Many thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Minotaur Books for providing me an advance copy of this book.

I appreciate the ways Ryan depicts the Evans women's combination of pragmatism and responsibility with intergenerational secrets and miscommunications. From matriarch Ducey to high school student Luna, their personalities shine through, whether they're dealing with the dead, the not-so-dead, or each other. An engaging new addition to the rural fantasy landscape.

I am in support of the boycott of St. Martin’s Press. I am withholding my review until such time as this is resolved.

There is an active boycott of this publishing house due to the failure of St. Martin’s Press to ensure the safety of their Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian influencers. Over 7,500 influencers to date have signed the petition demanding that St. Martin’s Press meet the incredibly reasonable demands below.
- Address and denounce the Islamophobia/racism from their employee.
- Offer tangible steps for how they're going to mitigate the harm this employee caused.
- Address how, moving forward, they will support and protect their Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab readers, influencers, and authors in addition to their BIPOC readers, influencers, and authors.
Readers for Accountability recently brought to your attention the threatening behaviors displayed by friends of your employee towards multiple members of their team. This not only includes online harassment with threats of lawsuits and reporting but has extended to tracking the whereabouts of a prominent Black creator whom you chose to unfollow.
This refusal to engage with the influencers who provide SMP with free labor is both disheartening and offensive.

This story takes place in Southeast Texas at a funeral parlor that is ran by a family of Vampires where when people die they bury them but what happens next to them you have to read the book to find out😊
But when rumors are floating around that the return of the original vampire is coming The Evan’s family began to worry and wondered what is store for them.
I enjoyed the relationship between the characters Ducey, Lenore, Grace, and Grace’s daughter Luna each brings their own strengths and vulnerabilities, making them relatable for Vampires that is.
This book combine’s Vampires and mystery into one well told and unique story that has some southern charm and of course great secrets with a some blood and gore
But what would you expect? It’s a vampire story.

Title: Bless Your Heart by Lindy Ryan
Publication Date- 04/09/24
Publisher- St. Martin's Press
Overall Rating- 5 out of 5 stars

Review: Review copy given to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I honestly have no complaints about this book. I enjoyed it from start to finish. Bless Your Heart has a lot of really fun elements to it. It takes place in the South in 1999 and follows 3 generations of women running a funeral home. This is a paranormal story about vampires but it’s unlike any I’ve read before. Sure, it has the things you should expect from a vampire novel but it also adds it’s own twists to a creature story. The vampires here have some features of zombies and the undead which I found really entertaining.

This is also a mystery/ thriller. We not only follow the Grandmother, Mother and Daughter but the police caption who is trying to figure out what is going on at this funeral parlor run by this family. It looks like on Goodreads, this plans to be a series and I cannot wait to see what will happen next.

Going into this story it’s not one you should expect to take super series. At times it felt like a cozy mystery but with some added horror and gore. I all around really enjoyed it and would likely read it again. There were so many different things happening and storylines going on that it kept my attention but wasn’t too much that I felt overwhelmed or confused.

I enjoyed this laid back, exciting vampire story. Loved the characters and the world. It felt gothic at times and honestly could be framed as a lighter version of True Blood. In summary, it gets my recommendation.

Thank you to MacMillan and St Martin's press for review copies of Bless Your Heart. I recommend this one on audiobook as I really thought the narration gave style to Ryan's writing that helped me enjoy the story more.
There is a lot to like in this story, it resonated with my buffy the vampire slayer loving self and my appreciation for stories with strong female characters and for family dynamics that are complex but funny and edgy, and for the part of me that likes a sneakily dark and gory story underneath the fun and humor (similar to some of grady hendrix's books).

My one note is that the writing, despite a solid plot and characters and themes I love... didn't always work for me, this is a really liked it but missing some of the pizzazz/pow that I was expecting, I think it was the somewhat scattered development of the plot as we were learning about two big plot points, the family story and then what was happening in the town (akin to a pilot for a show that has to do a lot of work to explain a lot of things.., it works but I hope it is a set up for another story that flows more effectively!)

Stephanie Németh-Parker's narration for Bless Your Heart from Lindy Ryan really makes this book work so I suggest this is a great one to read and listen along as well. I really appreciated the voice acting that captured tone and spirit of the different characters, let the darkness sneak in but also the humor too.

What a fun concept! I loved the character development and the family dynamic going on throughout this novel. I struggled some with the morgue setting, but that’s just my queasy stomach. Love it and thank you for the arc!

The premise of Southern women and vampires immediately sucked me in. It took me a while to read this book and I'm not sure why. The story is told through different POV and once I figured out/remembered who was who I actually liked the generational gap and POV from the women. However, I think the story was somewhat underwhelming. Overall I did enjoy it, but it's not a book I'm going to reach for for a re-read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

These Evans Women Are Tough!

I really enjoyed this book. It's scary and has a sense of dark humor that somehow keeps it light when corpses start coming to life. I'll think twice when I pass by a funeral parlor, especially in the podunk parts of southeast Texas. It's a great area for a horror novel setting! They say that you have to be tough to make it in Texas, and these women certainly are.

All the characters are wonderful. I'm not a fan of being kept in the dark myself, so I could relate to Luna even though I'm 50+ years older than her. She makes this a coming-of-age story, but it's more than that. Each character, from Ducey to Luna Evans, the sheriff, the deputies, and the townspeople are written vividly and I cared about them.

There were potential sub-plots with peripheral characters that I hope will appear in at least one sequel. I want to know what happens next at the Evans Family Funeral Parlor!

Thank you to author Lindy Ryan; St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books, publishers; and to NetGalley for the free advance reader's copy. They put me under no obligation to give a positive review, but I'm giving one anyway! If you like horror of the vampire/Strigoi/zombie genres and prefer books with strong female and strong male characters, you will love Bless Your Heart.

I don't know what it is, but I've been reading lots of books set in the 90s lately. Add in that Bless Your Heart is set in Texas and it's right up my alley.

It's 1999 and the Evans women have run the town funeral home for generations. They're not just in charge of funeral arrangements, but also make sure that what's dead stays dead. But the dead aren't the only thing the Evan's women are ensuring stay buried, and with the dead rising the secrets the women keep are rising with them.

I so enjoyed this book. It's a quirky, fun, paranormal, mystery and I was here for it. I primarily listened to the audiobook, and it definitely made traffic more enjoyable. The Evans women (Ducey, Lenore, Grace, and Luna) have such spunk and if you follow me, you'll know I'm a sucker for a no-nonsense older lady.

While this book has a 'horror' label, it's just for the supernatural aspect. It' certainly falls more into the 'horror adjacent' realm with more a focus on the mystery. The ending has the potential for setting us up for a series, and I completely read another book in this series.


Bless Your Heart comes out April 9, 2024! Huge thank you to Minotaur Books and MacMillan Audio for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.  If you liked this review please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my instagram @speakingof.books or on Tiktok @speakingof.books

🧛🏻‍♀️Book Review🧛🏻‍♀️
*
Summary: 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.
*
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
*
My Thoughts: thank you so much @macmillan.audio and @netgalley for the advanced copy, this book releases 4/9 and the audio is just out of this world! I loved just about everything about this one, it was quirky and weird. It’s like a hybrid Grady Hendrix meets practice magic. It’s gory and quirky and just all around a good time fighting vampires. If you’re a Buffy fan I truly can’t recommend this one enough. It’s going to be a book series and I just can’t wait to book number 2! 😍

Good book with a solid story that keeps the reader engaged the whole way through. I really liked the main character and how they were presented to the reader.

3/5 ⭐️
I think this book had potential and an interesting concept, however, for me it fell flat. I was not engaged. Most of it felt almost superficial. Like the stakes should’ve been tense, but they weren’t. I think because there was too many point of views and we never really dug deeper into them then the superficial. And I think that can work sometimes (ie Agatha Christie), but then the plot needs to hit harder. In addition, i think there were too many unnecessary details. Like I don’t need to know that she drove a mazda passed the 7/11 listening to Dixie chicks. Like these kind of details can be fun if used sparingly. Here it’s every other page. Minimum. I think if this was fixed then this could’ve been excellent. I think the characters we did meet were very distinct and realistic in their descriptions. So on the surface I was excited, but then left wanting. The descriptions were also excellent, conjuring images in my mind’s eye.
Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur for providing an advance reader copy of this book for my honest review.

This was a little more gory than I usually like to read. A cross between vampires and zombies a neat new monster to read about. I enjoyed the premise and the characters however I felt like the pacing was sometimes off and felt about 100 pages longer than it really needed to be. The audiobook narrator did a fantastic job.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

This is a light mystery horror that is perfect for the girlies generally don’t read horror. I had a great time and laughed out loud multiple times. Highly recommend!

Thanks to Minotaur for the e-arc and MacMillan Audio for the ALC!

It was...fine. I think I had different expectations of this being a dark comedy and it really wasn't. A lot of this felt reptative and it took me SO long to actually read the book when I can normally fly through a 300 page book in an evening.

This was such a fun and enjoyable listen. This story was a kooky mess unfolding and I enjoyed every second. It’s not often you find a suspenseful page turner that also makes you laugh like a crazy person and I am so glad I saw this in Shelf Awareness and requested ARCs! The narrator was especially animated and had the perfect southern twang for this book.

The Evans women are a force to be reckoned with and I truly enjoyed their varied personalities and the way they all fit together. Ducey is a spitfire great grandma and matriarch of her Strigoi fighting family. She’s definitely my favorite of the Evans women and looked forward to each of her POV chapters.

I know some people might write this off immediately when they hear vampires are involved, but I really believe that any kind of reader could enjoy this. This was not only fun, but also a wonderful and heartwarming family story between women of multiple generations and the lengths they go to protect each other.

The only reason this isn’t 5 stars is because there were a couple predictable factors, but the ending still surprised me and this was definitely a great and original tale!