**3.5 Stars

This cover definitely fools you. I thought I was going into a horror/comedy book about generations of women making sure the restless dead are officially laid to rest. That is not what I got. You definitely get a book about four generations of women and how the Evans women have always been responsible for making sure the dead stay dead. But comedy was not something this book had a lot of. There was a lot of tension and angst, and toward the end is when the action started to really pick up.

If you go into this book knowing what to expect, I think it'll be a book a lot of women's fiction/horror lovers will want to add to their TBR.

“𝙻𝚎𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚖𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚍 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚌𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚗‘𝚝. 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚖.“

The theme for this month’s Lore of the Nails nail collab is Vampire and, luckily for me, it pairs perfectly with my last spooky season read. This gruesomely fun tale from Lindy Ryan was exactly what was needed to end October with a bang!

“𝙻𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜𝚗‘𝚝 𝚜𝚊𝚕𝚟𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝙴𝚟𝚊𝚗𝚜 𝚠𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚗. 𝙸𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚌𝚞𝚛𝚜𝚎.“

When we first meet the Evans women, it’s 1999 in Southeast Texas and the four generations of fiercely strong & undoubtably capable females are running the family business - death (aka, the only funeral home in town). The reason that this has been the family business forever quickly becomes clear. The Evans women are there to make sure that the dead stay dead.

“𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚝𝚘 𝚔𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚖 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚍𝚘𝚗‘𝚝 𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚞𝚙 𝚊𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗.“

This was a fast, fun read full of nostalgia and gore. I loved it and it was perfect for Halloween but will definitely work anytime of year when you’re looking for those chills & thrills. It releases on April 9th so go ahead and pre-order. You won’t regret it!

“𝙽𝚘 𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚘𝚛 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚊𝚌𝚝, 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢‘𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚜. 𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝚍𝚘𝚗‘𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚒𝚝.“

I'd been waiting to read this because I knew it was going to be a super good read. And it was SUPER worth the wait! This took me on a complete roller coaster and every time I thought I was on the right track, things twisted around to the point where I had to sit back for a second to process. This was an amazing read and the bonds of love between the Evans women coupled with the small town they live in makes for an adventure of a lifetime. 10/10!

Four generations of women take care of the dead at their funeral home, and take care of the undead, too.

When the ghoulish strigoi start showing up in small-town Texas, it’s up to Ducey, Lenore, Grace and Luna to discover who (or what) has caused them to rise. Family secrets are dug up, and the teenaged Luna is finally told about her family and her role in it.

Pretty gruesome descriptions, and lots of gore (I don’t read horror novels, so maybe it’s light gore for some folks!) but I really enjoyed the book, and look forward to reading more by Lindy Ryan.

Thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the ARC!

Bless Your Heart is perfect for fans of Grady Hendrix and Charlaine Harris who like their horror with a big dose of heart and humor. While there is gore-a-plenty, the focus is on the matriarchal Evans line and the four generations of women who keep a small Texas town safe from the undead by performing one good burial at a time. If you read Practical Magic and wished it was set in the South instead of New England, this one is for you!

Four generations of Evans women run the funeral home in a small Texas town. The story takes place in 1999 and great-grandmother Ducey, grandmother Lenore, mother Grace are trying to keep the business going and keep the youngest Evans female, Grace's teenage daughter Luna, from learning certain unpleasant facts about things that have gone on in their town. Unfortunately, it soon becomes impossible to keep Luna in the dark when the recently deceased suddenly begin coming back to life. The newly awakened dead are not at all pleasant to be around and want nothing more than to attack and kill any humans they come into contact with. The Evans women are all too-familiar with the concept of the "strigoi" or dead who come back to life. All of them (except for Luna) have dealt with putting the strigoi back in the ground, although not recently. As they struggle to keep the undead from multiplying (apparently they get stronger with each person they kill), they will also finally have to confide in Luna and tell her about what happened surrounding the "Godawful Mess" that occurred 15 years ago.

I enjoyed the humorous aspects of the book and the interactions between the characters. If a horde of ravenous zombie creatures were on the loose, you'd certainly be glad to have the Evans women on your side! The main quibble I had was that any time there was an undead creature that they were planning to dispatch, there had to be a long, drawn-out conversation among the women as the monster was flailing about and trying to attack them -- you'd think they'd have more pressing matters at hand that arguing over when to tell Luna about the Godawful Mess and why that might not be such a good idea. I think this would make a really amusing film, especially with great-grandma taking down the undead!

In a Southeast Texas town in 1999, four generations of Evans women are caretakers for the dead. Owning and running a funeral home has made them outcasts in the town, but that’s only helped them keep their secret: they don’t just care for the dead, they ensure the dead stay dead.

It’s been years since they’ve had to worry about the Strigoi, ghouls that are part vampire, part zombie. But something’s stirring in this small town and suddenly there are a lot more dead to take care of. And it’s not just the dead rising – family secrets are bubbling to the surface, too.

What a delightful mix of mystery and horror, with just a dash of humor. This book has action from the get-go, and some great reveals. And the ending…I gasped! It definitely made me anxious for the next book in the series.

Because of the fast pace of the novel, and all the characters that were introduced, I do wish I’d gotten to know a little more about each of the Evans women. But I’m sure that’s coming in Book 2.

Bless Your Heart, a debut novel by Lindy Ryan, is about a family of women who own and run a funeral parlor in a small Texas town. There’s been a rash of nightmarish murders and mutilated dead bodies that have confounded the local sheriff’s department.

The women, a grandmother, mother, daughter and granddaughter, can’t tell the officers that they know the murders have been committed by ghouls and that the dead are rising and they know how to stop them and are trying to do that.

What will happen? You’ll have to read this wild book to find out. If this is the kind of story you like, it’s well written and the characters are fascinating and the story is entertaining and it’s worth the read. However, this type of book is not my usual style of reading and not something I’d normally read so I didn’t love it. But I did end up liking it.

I’d suggest trying it to find out what happens.

3.5

this was pretty fun! although the climax felt... a little muddled? i wasn't entirely sure what was happening at times or the logistics of it all. i also feel that it was a little slow in the middle which i don't have a problem with in stories if it helps readers get to the know the characters. i didn't really feel like i got to know the Evans women all that well. what i did know of them though, i enjoyed!

I wanted so much to like this book but unfortunately it just wasn’t for me.
A multigenerational family of women run the town funeral home which includes keeping the town safe from the undead things that show up too.

I tried to get into this book so many times. I would read a little, then have to step away for a bit….then I’d come back and try again. There were so many different characters that it felt impossible to keep the Evan’s family straight, and while I like horror, I can only handle so many intense descriptions. This just wasn’t for me.

Don't let the cute silly cover fool you! This is not a light vampire read. It's got gore and death and some tough as nail women ready to take it all down!

Based on the cartoon-style cover and the title, I expected this to be a dark comedy, light vampire read. It certainly was not! This is a story about what most movies today lead us to think of more like zombies, complete with feasting on humans. Though it wasn't as expected, the story did keep the plot moving and I was curious to learn the full story.

Well that’s a perfect book to read for Halloween but don’t judge a book by it’s cover! I thought I was getting into a funny, easy, vampire read….and holy cow, that was gruesome!

Four generations of Evan’s Women run a funeral home. And when bodies start turning up mutilated and disfigured (again, it’s gruesome!), they worry about what (WHO) has returned. Equipped with trocars from the embalming suite, the women try stop what’s going on before it’s too late!

Not my typical read, but for Halloween it was perfect!

Book review of Bless Your Heart by Lindy Ryan
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Thank you so much to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for this cute, quirky book.
I used to watch Buffy on TV and this made me think of that show. Loved these characters and the quirkiness of each one.
The Evans women own a funeral parlor and have always been mainstays in their small town. People die, and they bury them!
Mina Jean Murphy is brought in for her burial as she has finally has passed due to cancer. There is only one problem, as she is prepared for burial, she decides to rise up from the dead. It seems that the original vampires, the Strigoi is back, and all the Evan's women are ready to rid the town of these vampires.
This was not a one off event, as more and more folks start to die, and the hunt ensues to figure out what is making the dead rise!
It's a good murder mystery and fun read.
This comes out in April 9, 2024 and I recommend you grab this one and you will love solving the murder mystery.
#crazybooknerd
#bookstagram
#netgalley
#blessyourheart
#stmartinspress

It is 1999, and Strigoi, or the original vampires, besiege a small town in Texas. While trying to keep a lid on a situation quickly spinning out of control, it is up to four generations of Evans women to stop the Strigoi. Viewed by many in town as strange, the Evans family has run the local funeral home for decades. Luckily, these ladies are experienced vampire slayers.

Admittedly, I do not read much horror, but I love a good vampire story. I also love Bram Stoker's Dracula. Ryan's tributes to that iconic book were so much fun to read, including bits of Strigoi myth, and the first victims in both Dracula and this book share a name, Mina and Mina Jean. One of the heroes of Stoker's 1897 classic was a character from Texas. I don't know if this was set in Texas as a nod to Dracula, but either way, I loved the small-town Texas setting and all the 90's references as a backdrop for the bloodstained mayhem!

Told in a multiple POV format, this has excellent world-building, spooky vibes, a bit of a mystery, humor, secrets, and a fair amount of gore. I enjoyed the author's descriptive writing style and the generational family dynamics that round out the story. The Evans women were quirky, quick-thinking, and feisty. And I particularly loved the character of Ducey, the no-nonsense, butterscotch candy-loving matriarch.

I don't want to say much more for fear of spoilers, but this is fun, escapist, and dripping in blood and Southern charm! I read this during a stormy weekend here in my little corner of Texas, and it was a fun way to wrap up my spooky season reading!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press Minotaur Books for the opportunity to review this ARC!

Bless Your Heart is a kitschy tale that weaves the story of a small Southern town with the ghouls and nightmares of your classic 80s horror movies. We follow the Evans women, a family that owns the only funeral home in town. On the surface, it’s a bit creepy. But it covers up an even darker truth: they have to put down the undead before they rise up to feed on the living. It happened once, and now it’s happening again.

The premise of the book sounded so interesting—Southern charm plus hunting the undead. But the book itself lacks any charm that a small-town cast should provide, as it spends so much time flipping between different characters and viewpoints that the reader never gets to really know or like any of them. If feels like the author did this solely to show us the pieces of the story that the main characters didn’t witness, but for me, it just took away from the mystery and made it impossible to get to know the Evans women.

I think this book was a great idea, and could have been better with more polished execution, but I can’t say I’d recommend this unfortunately,

Thank you to St Martin’s Press Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the ARC!

I was able to read this just before Halloween which added even more to the spooky vibe! This book had it all - horror with comedy, relationships between generations , and multiple POVs.

This was such an entertaining read!

I was skeptical I would like this book, but I was very wrong. I fell in love with the characters and I loved the mix of supernatural, horror and comedy that was mixed in. The writing was done in a way that made you not want to put the book down and just keep turning the pages.

I cannot resist a southern tale involving vampires, especially when it gives off Grady Hendrix vibes. But it didn’t quite live up to what I had hoped it would be.

Don’t get me wrong. This was a fun story. Fun, but not necessarily funny. I expected more humor from it, but that’s okay. It had plenty of other things going for it.

For example, it has four generations of southern women fighting vampires. I loved that!

It also has some rather horrific scenes, a couple fantastic twists, and an action packed ending.

I did feel there was a bit of repetitive filler, but it still moved along at a steady pace.

My biggest problem is solely a “me” problem, and not a flaw within the book. I’d also like to blame Mr. Hendrix for this, though. He has caused me to go into campy horror with the belief that there will also be strong social commentary involved. I had erroneous expectations here and that’s not fair to the story, but I would have enjoyed it a lot more if those expectations had been met.

I am immensely grateful to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for my copy. All opinions are my own.