⭐️ Slow burn
⭐️ He falls first
⭐️ Friends to lovers
⭐️ Grumpy Sunshine

🌶️🌶️/5

Lark is running away from her past and ends up in Ireland in the process of unpacking she accidentally opens mail for the place next door and finds body bags. Reluctantly she returns them and finds Callum the handsome undertaker.

Lark is outgoing and doesn’t hold back and Callum is reserved and quiet with a stutter.

Lark ran from her past and swears she’ll never let herself love and be with someone ever again and blames herself for her husband’s passing. Callum needs to find someone to marry and quick before his 35th birthday according to his grandad’s will or he’ll lose the funeral home and his passion.

The two become quite the pair and start a blossoming new friendship where Lark slowly draws Callum out of his shell by being kind a patient.

Quickly there is more feelings under way and the two become closer and closer. But Callum wants something Lark doesn’t. The two have to battle their feelings and come up with a decision before it’s too late.

This was such a fun and cozy read. The Slow burn had me pulling at my hair and wanting more. Beautifully written and the ending will have you in cheers. You can lose yourself in the story and forget you are even reading. I will read anything the author may put out in the future for how beautiful of a story this was.

This is one of my absolute favorite romances to date. I love how unique the main characters are. They are well developed and interesting. The setting is well developed and transports you right to Galway. I was moved to tears at a few different points. The characters’ romance felt so natural and their growth felt real. I absolutely cannot wait for the next installment in the series!

i really enjoyed this book! this was super cozy and an amazing read and Ivy did an amazing job with this story. I loved the unique take on a mortician who falls in love with his next door neighbor who is grieving her husband’s death. the slow burn was SO worth the wait and the friends to lovers was done so well. This book is perfect for an early fall/late summer read to prepare for cozy season!

3.5 stars rounded up for a unique meet-cute in Ireland and an ending that made me cry.

This book was a touch too long and really dragged out the will-they-wont-they and miscommunication tropes. The lovey-doves dialogue was so cringy. And the bad guys were really slapsticky bad!

But the characters were really sweet with each other and some A+ death jokes. If you like romance books, give this one a try. If you don’t, then skip it. (A general rule of thumb I suppose)

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this! It was such a cute book and absolutely adored it! This is a new fav!

Morbidly Yours
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I went in blind so I didn’t really have any expectations for this one and I’m happy to say I finished with a new favorite author that I can’t wait to see more books from, literally devoured this in less than 24 hours. I didn’t care where the story was going all I knew was I was right there with Lark, packing my bags ready to move to Ireland. Morbidly Yours has a little of everything - dual POV, short chapters, it’s spicy, there are quirky, flawed, relatable characters, dry humor, it just felt different from other romances I’ve been reading lately and I loved that! We explore death, loss, social anxiety, starting over, sexuality. This book is a light romance, but it’s also about acceptance, vulnerability, and truly living. We explore all of this in a humorous, relatable, fun way and I enjoyed it all! I loved the awkwardness we saw in Callum, it made him feel real and this light that Lark switched in him ugh amazing 🥹 I’ll say that our big moment toward the end felt a little cheesy, like boom box over our head cheesy, but I couldn’t help but smile and it came together perfectly in the end! I also think this is a debut novel which just makes me so excited for more by Ivy and it looks like a sequel will happen, I can already guess who it’ll be about! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
🪦
Callum grew up and works in a mortuary so embalming practices are detailed. I personally didn’t feel uncomfortable by it nor does it take up much of the story but just a heads up. It’s done very respectfully.
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Also I couldn’t get behind the mouse 😂 you’ll see!
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Thank you NetGalley, G.P Putnam’s Sons, and Ivy Fairbanks for this e-arc. Mark your calendar for August 20th!

i love when books take place in Ireland. this book was very steamy and a quick read. good marriage of convenience and best read in October.

29 year old Lark moves to Ireland from Texas for a temporary job, enabling her to escape a recent trauma in her past. She meets her new neighbor when she accidently receives a package meant for them, and discovers what she thought was a bed and breakfast was actually a funeral parlor, run by 34 year old Callum. Shy, Introverted Callum grew up in the funeral home and was raised by his grandparents, but now that they are both gone, he must marry someone by his next birthday or he will lose the family business.

The novel is a bit friends to lovers, a bit grumpy and sunshine, and also deals with Callum's stuttering, demisexuality, and the issues of workplace harassment, grief and learning to be more self confident. I enjoyed both main characters as well as lots of sweet side characters, and even learned a bit about embalming and animation. I thought the author did a great job on this debut novel and will appeal to anyone looking for a fun and spicy romance with a touch of Irish brogue as well.

Thank you to net galley and the publisher for the e galley in exchange for an honest review.

Love the premise, side stories were a 10, lovable mouse sidekick so cute - but I hate a miscommunication so epic and the will they won’t they made me want to scream! I also can’t get behind some of the cringe, even though I knew it would be a cute and odd little book going into it. 3.5 stars for me!

For a debut novel, this was absolutely stunning, A lovely, quirk tribute life, love and loss through tears and humor. Ivy Fairbanks tore my heart in two and sewed it back together. Callum and Lark are beautifully different and colorful characters (even if Callum prefers the practical darker shades). There love was honest and raw. Absolutely adore this book and cannot wait to get my hands on a physical copy to annotate.

** please not the spoilers at the beginning of this novel**

This delightful, moving novel is a must read for contemporary romance fans!

You might be skeptical of a story involving an undertaker can be funny, adorable, and heartwarming, but Morbidly Yours by Ivy Fairbanks delivers an amazing romance story set in beautiful Ireland.

Callum is a quiet, introverted undertaker trying to keep his family mortuary alive after his granda's passing. The only downside is his grandfathers will creates a clause that he must get married to keep the funeral home alive, or his estranged dad can swoop in and do as he pleases. Lark is a brand new resident to the scenic town of Galway, Ireland and is looking to get a change of scenery while working on a new animated film while avoiding dealing with her emotions regarding the devastating loss of her husband and support system at home.

Can these two be the answer they both need for each other?



I must say that while this book deals with loss in multiple ways, it is a perfect balm to the soul. Callum and Lark both jump out of the page and you immediaty feel for them as a reader. Ivy Fairbanks funny, heartwarming prose keeps you invested in their story and you can't help but fall in love with their story.

Representation for characters with disabilities (stuttering) as well as characters on the asexual/aromantic spectrum.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this unbiased review. You can see this review on my Goodreads page as well as on my podcast The Books and the Bees.

I am absolutely starved for demisexual rep so I jumped at the chance to read this, but for the most part this relationship just frustrated me. Felt like a lot of miscommunication and back and forth over what you knew what was going to happen for an obvious happy ending at the end anyways. I did enjoy it more towards the end and was happy for the main couple

What a delightful read - this was a fun romcom that I just adored. It’s cute and sweet and just an overall good time.

You get some standard tropes but they’re reinvented in fun ways: friends to friends with benefits to lovers but also arranged marriage. It’s all there but in a way I haven’t read before.

We don’t get insta-lust but we do get “he’s instantly obsessed with her” and I loved how the romance gradually evolved into something more meaningful and deep than just a surface level “insta-lust.”

This is set in Galway, Ireland and I loved all the culture that’s brought in and how it’s woven so beautifully throughout the novel.

I just really enjoyed this. It was a sweet, fun read and prefect for a summer beach read for sure if that’s what you’re looking for.

I can tell this is a debut- it's a little rough in spots, but her characters are compelling and interesting! Lark is charming and Callum is quite relatable. I would definitely read more from this author.

After the loss of her husband, Lark moves to Galloway Ireland for a job and finds herself living next door to a mortician named Callum. The two strike up an unusual friendship which eventually turns into something more. Lark and Callum were complex but lovable characters. I fell in love with both of them as they were falling in love with each other. The beautiful Ireland setting made for a great backdrop and as a SLP, the stuttering representation was great. I will admit the book started off a bit slow for me, but by the end I really enjoyed all the pieces.

Read for:
-Grumpy hero/ sunshine heroine
-MC with a stutter
-Grief/ loss of loved one
-Friends with benefits
-Irish dirty talk
-Ireland setting

Thank you Putnam for the ARC!

A great fun and cozy read tackling grief and how it can bring people together in unexpected ways. There is so much tension between the main characters as they learn to lean on each other, develop friendship, and become lovers.

So. At 40% of a romance novel, they should not be dating other people. We should have something to believe in at this point. I also need more romance and less descriptions of actual dead bodies and the embalming process. Thanks for the shot at this one but it just isn’t for me.

Unlike the title, it was a really really light read! It's obviously a challenge to write a story that relies so heavily upon the black cat/golden retriever dynamic to the point where it feels like the contrast is mentioned every other page, so I give the story credit for not making me instantly sick of it. Even though the characters are adults and the story revolves around heavy things like learning to live after the death of a spouse, I feel like the writing style was definitely more in the realm of young-adult.
Thank you to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for this eARC!

I loved this book! It was so fun and sweet and cute. I loved the characters and the chemistry between Lark and Callum. Parts of it were very personal to me and it had serious moments, but it was worth the tears

* I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this book. All thoughts are my own.

This was a good debut! Callum was an absolute sweetie but Lark did get on my nerves a little bit. In the beginning she was fun, but when she got upset at Cal for defending her I got annoyed with her. I just felt like he deserved better. On the plus side, this book was spicier than I thought it would be! Also the first chapter where we met Cal and he’s working made me feel a little sick, but the author does include a warning at the beginning so that was very much appreciated!

Would recommend.