This one sounded like something different I might like, however I think I have decided horror isn’t for me. This is a me problem not a book problem.

I tried for a week to get into this book. It could just be me. At 38% in, I just didn't care about any of it.

Bless your Heart is totally not what I thought it was going to be. A little practical magic , true blood and some walking dead. A granny restless dead hunter i found this story to be fresh from the 90s a little fun and gory. Definitely cannot wait to read the next one!

1999 small town Texas- but make it night of the living dead. Add an all female-funeral parlor owning-family, a goth transplant, a couple cops, and a love story or two for some ✨extra✨ depth.

⚰️🧛🏼⚰️🧟⚰️🧛🏼⚰️🧟⚰️

Well … this was … unexpected. I don’t know what I was expecting with this one 😅 but it was way gorier than thought it would be. And teeth (ALWAYS TEETH). I did think the gore was balanced by the other elements of the plot and it was never gratuitous so that definitely helped!

Not to say I didn’t enjoy it-I did! The banter, the legend building, and the strong women- all good. The paranormal universe Ryan created in the middle of 1999 - good. I am still confused if we have vamps or zombies or a combo in this one- but those were good too !

There is something going on in this small town, and The Evans so.en are the only ones who can fix it . I enjoyed this read, part zombie/vampire, the characters wre great, loved their personalities, not sure if this will be a series, but would love to see this story evolve .

Small town Texas in 1999 (so much nostalgia), strong female characters, the undead, lots of POVs. This has it all.

The restless dead have a resurgence in a small Texas town circa 1999. I mean, sure, the town experiences a restless member of the nonliving cropping up every now and then, but these are numbers the women of the Evans family haven’t seen in years.

Three generations of Evans women are about to introduce a fourth generation to the family calling. As proprietors of the only funeral home in town, they are used to being the last stop before town members are laid to rest. Some of their clients just need a little extra help getting there.

This one is told in multiple POVs. Strap in for something kind of wacky, and I recommending avoiding eating while reading.

Bless Your Heart would be good for fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who are open to impalements staged in a Southern setting.

I received an advance copy of the ebook from Minotaur Books and NetGalley. All review opinions are my own.

Thank you to @netgalley @macmillan.audio and @stmartinspress for the gifted copy of this book.

I just love the Evans women! As the owners of the local funeral home, they make sure that the dead stay dead. These women have big hearts, are tough as nails, and approach every situation with witty humor. They’ve seen it all, fought it all, and refuse to back down from a challenge. They prove that sometimes popping a butterscotch candy and wielding a sharp object is all it takes to get through the day.
This isn’t your typical vampire story, I mean there are vampires and gore, but at the heart of it is a family that will do anything to protect each other and their community.

I had such a great time reading this book. It’s well paced with a great mystery and even better cast of characters. If you’re looking for a fun, easy read - this is the one!

⭐⭐⭐⭐💫 (4.5)

Bless Your Heart by Lindy Ryan-debut author
Publication 4-9-24, read 4-9-24
E-book 301 pgs. and audiobook 10:48
Genre: Adult Fic, Paranormal, Fantasy, Horror, Humor, Thriller
Tropes: Vampires, Family Drama, Hidden Secrets

Thanks to NetGalley, Minotaur Books, and Macmillan Audio for this ARC & ALC❤️! I voluntarily give my honest review and all opinions expressed are mine alone.

The narrator Stephanie Nemeth-Parker read in a Southeastern Texas accent that fit all the characters . The voices brought this fantasy to life with quick pacing by the narrator and the author. I loved all the different POVs-mainly the four Evans' women. The narrator paused and announced every time a new chapter came. The book had a table of contents which helped me follow along with the e-book and audio.

It's 1999 in TX where the Evans' women run a funeral parlor that protects the town from the Strigoi-the "original" vampires along w/ ghouls they create. The matriarch is Ducey Evans(80) along with her daughter Lenore, granddaughter Grace, and great granddaughter Luna. Grace has raised Luna alone and kept her father's identity from her, along with the events leading up to the death of Grace's father Jimmy. The killings and rising dead have started again so the Evans' women know the past has creeped back into their lives. The side characters gave the story some charm, loved Sheriff Buck and Belle . I would definitely read more in this world!

I loved this small town human/vampire story very much in the vein of The Southern Vampire Mysteries and The Dead Don't Die-both the book series and movie highly recommended. I suggest listening to the audiobook because you can adjust the speed, skip parts easily (if desired), and picture the characters more vividly.

Rating: 5/5

"Bless Your Heart" by Lindy Ryan is a chip off the ol' modern horror comedy block. It's not too scary but just bloody enough to keep you interested. If you liked THE SOUTHERN BOOK CLUB GUIDE'S TO SLAYING VAMPIRES and THE VIOLENCE, you will probably enjoy BLESS YOUR HEART.

Ryan skillfully blends elements of family drama, small-town dynamics, and the supernatural to craft a humorous, horrific tale. The characters, particularly the Evans women, are very enjoyable to spend time with, though I confess I got them mixed up from time to time. I liked the late '90s setting very much and *really* liked Crane. I definitely would have had a crush on him in high school.

Give this book a whirl if you are looking for a horror novel that has more laughs than gasps! Don't forget to bring the butterscotch candy.

Thank you very much for the ARC in exchange for this review.

A fun and fast paced romp through a multi-generational funeral parlor with a big secret.

The story was original and interesting with a host of unique character-all of the Evans women are a real delight. The issue for me was the pacing; some places felt rushed, like the narrative was scrambling to get these plot points out so we could move one, which resulted in some characters (Crane especially) feeling flat. Other pieces were dragged out too long, like what exactly the "Godawful Mess" was. Most readers should have pieced every bit of it together by the time it's explained so the revelation doesn't feel at all revelatory.

Nevertheless, it was such a charming horror-mystery that I'm excited to see how Lindy Ryan might really make these characters and this world shine with a little more elbow room.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This book was absolutely incredible and I feel like it’s opened the book world up to a whole new genre: cozy horror. It had all the heart, banter, and unrequited love of a cozy with all the gruesome gore of horror. The Evans women are a monster hunting force to be reckoned with but still have all the mother daughter, family drama of any other family. I definitely connected with the small TX town feel of this novel and of course loved ALL the references of 1999. I can’t wait to not only read more bout this family and town but also see it on the small screen since it’s been picked up for a series. All the characters were really special in this and after reading the acknowledgments it was really obvious why. This is overall a really fun book and I can’t wait to see what the world thinks about it.

“The body resting in the coffin at the front of the empty chapel had once belonged to Mina Jean Murphy, aged fifty-five years and seven months ”
Here are reasons to read the Horror book:

4 Generations - 4 Generations of Evans women have been running a business together in Southeast Texas
Funeral Parlor - They own a Funeral Parlor, but the real truth is that they help keep the dead buried, and they have successfully done so for year
Dead Rise - until one recently dead rises and they realize, the vampires might be returning again

This book was the second in my string of vampire reads this month. And I kind of struggled with it because the characters were hard to keep straight for me. Sure it was campy and fun, and a little bit gory. And there is a mystery, although you aren’t quite sure what it is. I was happy though that the ending turned out a lot better than I thought. However, it never really explains how this all started in the first place OR how it started originally and that is a story I would like. As this is the first in a series, maybe we will get those answers.

This was such a fun read, and felt like Six Feet Under crossed with a multi-generational Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was surprisingly heartwarming, with the complex relationships between mothers and daughters, and told the hard truths of the Godawful Messes that are sure to arise (see what I did there? 😏) from loving the wrong man.

The Evans women run the only funeral parlor in their small, Southeast Texas town, and for generations, they've been tasked with making sure the restless dead STAY dead. After 15 years of quiet, the dead are starting to rise again, and the Evans women aren't sure who, or what, is calling to them. Known as Strigoi, these vampire like creatures are more zombie like in nature, tearing their victims apart, and the descriptions used in the book are deliciously squishy. When it looks like history is going to repeat itself, matriarch Ducey, her daughter, Lenore, and granddaughter, Grace, band together to protect Grace's daughter Luna from making the same mistakes as her mother. But as a result of that mistake, not just Evans blood flows through Luna's veins, and she may be playing a bigger role in the rising of the dead than anyone could have suspected. I enjoyed the picture of small-town Texas life in the late 90s this story painted, with it's wide cast of side characters, and how the women were strong and resilient despite their personal losses. I did feel the ending was rushed, and the main action was crammed into the last 5% of the book, and that Luna's role in what went down could have been explained more.

This was not what I was expecting. From the synopsis I was looking for something more Grady Hendrix-esque, but this fell short. I feel like there were lots of loose ends left at the end too.

I adored this story! There are so many books about supernatural characters I'm always impressed when an author can put their own unique twist and spin on such characters. Lindy Ryan has a fantastic book 1 on her hands with her I'm already looking forward to book 2.
Texas 1999 The Evans woman Ducey, Lenore, Grace & baby Luna run the only funeral home in town. They've each played their role in buring the dead but when the dead aren't staying dead that's when this book has my undivided attention!
I'm getting this one as a mother's day gift for my Mom this year she's gonna love it as much as I did.

Four stars for the audiobook, and three stars for the novel! I thought the book was super fun overall with vampire zombie mashups and the family of women working in the funeral parlor. I liked the characters and all the butterscotch references. My mind wandered a bit with the story, but overall the audiobook performance made it enjoyable.

The gore and horror starts from the first page! While there is some levity and humor, this is truly horrific in a lot of parts, so take that into consideration when deciding to read or not.
The story gets a little repetitive especially past the 50% mark. I wish the “reveal” had happened a lot sooner so the reader isn’t just hinted at for 100 pages. The pacing was off- but I kept reading! I wanted to figure out what was happening and how the Evans family would solve the problems… I just think it could have been at least 50-75 pages shorter. I also thought there were too many POVs that don’t really add anything to the story. Some would have been better as just a narrator watching scenes/vignettes instead of a specific person.
Overall this was good but maybe not something I will continue to read- it does seem like it will continue as a series.

"Bless Your Heart" by Lindy Ryan delivers a captivating blend of mystery, horror, and Southern charm that will leave readers hooked from start to finish. Set in Southeast Texas in 1999, the novel introduces the Evans women, proprietors of the local funeral parlor, who find themselves facing an unexpected threat when the undead begin to rise.

Ryan's storytelling prowess shines as she weaves together a tale filled with suspense, intrigue, and dark humor. The dynamic trio of Ducey, Lenore, and Grace, along with Grace's daughter Luna, form a compelling ensemble cast, each character bringing their own strengths and vulnerabilities to the forefront as they confront the resurgence of the Strigoi.

What sets "Bless Your Heart" apart is its perfect balance of heart-pounding thrills and heartfelt moments. As the Evans women band together to protect their town from the supernatural threat, they must also confront the demons of their past and the secrets that threaten to tear them apart. Ryan skillfully navigates these complex familial dynamics, adding depth and richness to the narrative.

The Southern setting adds an extra layer of atmosphere to the story, immersing readers in the sights, sounds, and flavors of Southeast Texas. From the sweltering heat to the colorful characters populating the town, every detail feels authentic and vividly rendered.

With its crackling mystery, memorable characters, and Southern Gothic flair, "Bless Your Heart" is a gasp-worthy delight that will keep readers on the edge of their seats until the very end. Lindy Ryan has crafted a novel that is equal parts chilling and charming, making it a must-read for fans of mystery and horror alike.

Good book!

This was a very interesting story that takes place back in 1999 in a small town in Southeast Texas. The Evans women own and run the only funeral parlor in town. Ducey Evans has been taking care of the dead for almost 80 years now. She runs the parlor with her daughter, Lenore, and her granddaughter, Grace.

Ever since that "Godawful Mess" fifteen years ago, that left them with two dead bodies afterwards, the women and the town have been drama free ever since, but they know that their days are numbered. The women are hiding a big secret from Luna, Grace's daughter, one that can be catastrophic if she isn't told the truth.

When people start dying and disappearing, the Evans women know their time is up and Luna should have been told everything years ago. The Strigoi, a cross between a vampire and a zombie, is awakening the dead and the Evans women are the only ones who know how to stop them. But Luna needs to choose her path correctly.

How will they deal with this fallout?