This book made me cry on an Amtrak. It's one of my favorite books I've read all year. It's like the fantasy western folklore zombie cowboy mashup of my dreams, and I didn't even know I was in the market for one of those. The whole book is FUN: Hart is a lovable grump with the gooiest of marshmallow centers, and Mercy is desperately trying to keep the wheels on the bus for her family. The two bring out the worst in each other in person, but in their letters and then when they realize who their correspondent is, gently tease out the best. It's tender and delicate and funny and sweet and such a joy to read.

Hart, in particular, is a real stand-out character here. He's dealing with personal loss and insecurity about his parentage and the last thing he wants is anyone paying attention to him, and then he gets Mercy and an apprentice, Duckers. Duckers is so key to Hart's growth without ever feeling like the wise assistant or anything, and also just a freaking delight.

There's a lot of death in this book (see above re: zombies), a lot of thinking about how we care for the dead and where the dead go in this world. I feel like I'm sensitive to that sort of discussion and I think all of it was really careful and well-done.

After I finished this book, I had to stop myself from starting the whole thing over immediately because I loved it so much. I'd read anything else in this world.

I think the best way I can describe this was You’ve Got Mail but make it spooky? And I mean that in the best way. I loved the world building in this, it’s incredibly unique and left me wanting more from a few of the side characters and honestly just more of the world in general. I thought the romance was really sweet, I loved both Hart and Mercy and loved them even more together. All in all this one was a win for me.

Thanks to Orbit and NetGalley for the ARC.

This book was....it was a lot. A little bit of You've Got Mail mixed with some light zombies and mythology. I liked parts of this book, but it just wasn't an overall win for me. I found the writing to be incredibly blunt throughout the majority of the book. I could have used some more thorough description of the world. There was a description of the world's mythology about halfway through the book and I felt it would have been better placed either as a prologue or in the first few chapters.

The actual correspondence between our two main characters is actually a little dull, once we get to the romance portion of the book it finally picks up. I thought the romance was cute and the conflict well done. There were a lot of plot points throughout this book and it took me a long time to get through it. It was just very dense and not my cup of tea.

I loved all of this. I loved that it was a weird setting. I loved the romance, and how the rivals to lovers really stuck to the rivals part for a minute. Both Hart and Mercy were adorkable and it was just everything I needed this lovely thing to be. The family dynamics were great, and the hijinks were funny and wrapped the whole thing up in a nice warm fuzzy bow. (Also major points for decent spice).

I guess my only issue with it is the pacing? (she asks the question like she doesnt really know herself), but yeah I felt like there were some natural conclusions that came up, and I know the book had to go on, because other things weren't resolved yet, but it almost felt abrupt? It's missing a little flow is all. Thats what it is, just a little bit of flow. Otherwise it's great.

It was a really good time, and I think that if you go into it with the expectations that its going to be a little weird then you'll have a good time.

Hi, thank you for this copy! I really loved the book, and am eager to see what the author does next. Loved the setting, quirky animals delivering email, as well as the idea of demigods and humans mingling.

This review contains both implied and explicit spoilers throughout.

I don't know why the marketing team insisted on putting that Howl's Moving Castle comparison comment front and center on the Netgalley page, because IMO the two could not be more different, and that's coming from a Ghibli and Diana Wynne Jones fan. If you tilt your head and squint, I suppose they both contain elements of romance, a mentorship character, and take place in a magical world, but...well, <em>Hart & Mercy</em> was more <em>Pride & Prejudice & Zombies</em> if comparisons must be made. 

<b>Okay! Review Time!</b>

Hart & Mercy is certainly a unique concept to come across in a novel that's billed as a romance. This is a messy book, and I don't mean just in terms of the miscommunication. Hart makes his living patrolling the dangerously magical wilds of Tanria, which is separated from civilization by a series of complex wards and portals. He kills drudges -- the reanimated corpses of the dead that have been possessed by lost souls -- and carries around his guilt like someone is paying him to do it. Mercy is an undertaker, and Bannen does <em>not</em> shy away from describing the nitty-gritty nastiness of her job (I think we were all Zeddie when the embalming process made him upchuck his breakfast). On top of that, Hart is saddled with a new apprentice (mandatorily) and Mercy is fighting to keep the family business from falling apart when Zeddie reveals he has no plans to inherit and has been lying to them about finishing his degree. Hart is a demi-god. Mercy is wilfully blind to her siblings' points of view in the first half of the book. There's...a lot going on. 

<b>The Good:</b>
I did like this book despite how chaotic it got. I was pleasantly surprised by the twist in formatting--almost every romance novel starts with the female character's POV and sticks with it for the majority of the book, even when the POVs are split. We start with Hart here, and though I didn't do calculations or anything, I felt that we spent more time in his mind than Mercy's. I quite liked Hart as a character, and Mercy grew on me. I liked the side characters, though I think you could make the argument that several of them only existed to be surface-level filler characters. I thought the worldbuilding was unique (to a point) and the part where Mercy had to take care of Hart's body did bring me to tears in the middle of my workplace, so. There's that. 

<b>The Bad:</b>
Y'all. The letters. I know it's a huge part of the romance plot. I know. It wasn't good. I understand Bannen needed a way for the two to get to know each other without knowing who it was they were talking to, but the actual content of the letters...was boring. As the reader, I imagine you were supposed to feel touched, or that they were being sentimental and intimate, but I skimmed over them so quickly. There's also a part later in the book that devles into the mythology of the two godly pantheons in one huge chunk, and I think that should have been sprinkled more organically throughout the story. I have very little memory of that 2+ page infodump because my eyes glazed over so much. Also...for a romance hitching itself to the fantasy post, the fantasy plotline really didn't become front-and-center until 321 pages in, and that's...a long time to wait.

<b>The Ugly:</b> 
<em>The Undertaking of Hart & Mercy</em> sells itself as enemies to lovers. I've said this before, but I think this concept really only works when there are actual stakes involved if the enemies were to transition to lovers (like, rules of two countries that are at war, for example; not if two rival chefs decide to neck in the pantry while their food is burning on live TV) or if the enemies portion didn't make me, the reader, think that what they've said/done to each other is unforgivable. Hart & Mercy skirts this line a little too closely for my personal taste. Though I usually side with the female character because it's usually the main viewpoint we have, I surprised myself by taking Hart's side throughout their early interactions. I could understand where he was coming from almost immediately, but Mercy's reasoning for her hatred felt juvenile in comparison. I also thought she tended to be crueler than him, with the exception of that one scene where he tells her that she's profiting off other people's grief and basically rips her life to shreds. I cringed my way through the chapter where Mercy thought she'd been stood up by her letter-writing buddy when Hart was sitting in front of her, too. And I think it goes without saying about Hart not coming clean about the letters since every other character that knows tells him as much. 

<b>tl;dr:</b> 
I did like this book, and things I didn't like it made me consider if I was just not the audience for this particular book. 

<b>*Notes from the Margins*</b> 
-- there's a page from the publisher that stresses that every single word in the book is subject to change, so take these with a grain of salt I guess? 

<em>[“Huh. What about cats and dogs? Do they have appendixes?”
“No and no.”
“So they don’t have souls?”
Hart brought his equimaris to a halt, and Duckers’s mare, sensing authority, stopped in her tracks as well. “Do you honestly believe that dogs don’t have souls? Have you ever met a dog who wasn’t a hundred times nicer than your average human being?”
“Um, no?”
“Exactly. Don’t insult dogs like that.”]

[The owl didn’t have eyebrows, and yet he seemed to be cocking one at her. That scrutinizing gaze made her cheeks go hotter. “If you say so. Here are some bills. I suspect they shall be as depressing as a silent lover. Kiss, kiss.”]</em>

<b>**STAR BREAKDOWN**</b>
Cover: ★★★★☆
Story: ★★★☆☆
Characters: ★★★☆☆
Banter: ★★★☆☆
Spice Rating: ★★★☆☆
Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆

—Pasted from GR, sorry about the HTML tags hanging around.

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy tries to do a lot of things--to be romantic, to be poignant, to be funny--and it's not that it fails at those things, exactly, but that it doesn't quite succeed at them, either.

On paper, The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy is a novel that should've been--and that I very much expected to be--an instant favourite. But the execution really let me down here. It attempts a lot, but the writing just doesn't sustain or hold up all the things it's attempting. First, the romance: again, on paper all the elements were there, but in practice they didn't come together--which is a shame, because it really was poised to be such a great romance. For one, there's the fact that it's based on You've Got Mail, which is one of my all time favourite movies. For another, it's also such a great setup in general: the enemies-to-lovers, epistolary-romance, dramatic-irony of it all. For me, though, it didn't quite work. I didn't really get why the characters hated each other--the novel does eventually tell us why, but its explanation felt flimsy and not very believable given that these characters have disliked each other for 4 whole years--and then when they did stop hating each other, it felt way too abrupt and not organic enough of a development. The novel spends a lot of time in the beginning setting up the characters' letters to each other, and the letters were nice, but nothing about them really struck me as especially moving or special either. The word I keep reaching for is generic: the letters were nice, sure, but they just never surprised or moved me in any way. (That the romance is inspired by/retells You've Got Mail doesn't do the novel any favours because You've Got Mail does it all--the setup, the characters, the dialogue, the conflict, the resolution--so much better.) (Then again it is one of my all time favourite movies, so a lot to live up to there, I guess.)

What I felt about the romance--that it was lackluster, that it was more than a bit disappointing--I pretty much felt about the rest of the novel. The worldbuilding was fine, the plot was fine, but neither elicited anything in particular from me, and they both felt a bit cobbled together in their execution. Had I been more invested in the romance, I wouldn't have minded the weak worldbuilding or plot--I can forgive a novel a lot if I feel drawn to its characters and/or their relationships--but because I wasn't, those weaker elements stood out to me all the more.

I think what it comes down to for me is that this novel was really missing a strong sense of narrative voice. (Or maybe that its narrative voice just wasn't to my taste.) Frankly, I don't care about the plot or worldbuilding stuff all that much--or at least, I only care about it up to a point. What I'm really here for is the characters, and I just didn't feel like these characters were that distinct or impressionable. I could tell what The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy was trying to do as a novel, but at the same time I could also tell that what it was trying to do wasn't working for me. I can see this novel working for a lot of readers--and again, it wasn't a complete write-off for me--but as a whole it just lacked that strong sense of personality that's at the forefront of the kind of books that I tend to love.

Thanks so much to Orbit for providing me with an e-ARC of this via NetGalley!

Honestly... this was pretty cute though I don't have too much to say about it. While it might not be some readers' cup of tea, I enjoyed the immediate banter between the two leads - "Hartache. Merciless." - and it was an easy book to get through although I do wish there had been a little more world-building in general. Still, it was the characters and their interactions, their feelings, that really kept my attention. Definitely recommend for readers looking for a cute romance with some angst & fantasy!

Hopefully the plethora of run on sentences will be fixed by publication. While I appreciate books that drop you into a world, I do tend to want some real explanation early on.

Probably more of a 3.5 but I’m rounding up.

I had been seeing this book everywhere and my friend Shazzie was also reading it, but tbh I never had plans to pick it up. Then Libro.fm gave me the audiobook advance copy and I also got an arc through Netgalley, and as I’m always looking for something new to listen to, I thought why not give it a try. And turns out it was quite good.

I went in with no expectations, so I was immediately taken in by these two characters who are antagonistic towards each other but also have their own personal issues. I can’t say I was always a fan of the banter here because it bordered on mean a few times, and I kept wondering how their dynamic will change to romantic at some point. But the author does a great job with the transition and I started enjoying the book more once their interactions became friendlier and intense. Mercy is someone who seems to have dedicated her life to her family and their business, without ever thinking about herself and while there were hiccups, I was glad to see her speak up for herself as well as realize what she wanted to change in her life. Hart on the other hand is also a workaholic but there’s this deep loneliness within him that tugged at my heart and it was awesome to see his transformation when he realized he doesn’t need to be so lonely.

I enjoyed the contrast between the way they communicated in letters and then in person because there is a level of understanding that develops between them in words but it’s also obvious that they are mostly presenting one side of themselves in the letters. It really was an interesting parallel to our social media lives which are sometimes way different than our actual lives. I also enjoyed that they were quite considerate and thoughtful with each other once they developed a relationship.

Other than these two, their individual relationships with others were also very well written. Mercy’s sisterly dynamic with Lilian was fun, her initially skeptical but quick acceptance of Zeddie’s career choice was sweet and I loved how they all tried to protect their father. I didn’t think Hart would warm up so quickly to his partner Pen but it was such a lovely father-son kinda dynamic and I adored their scenes together. Alma and Diane were also good friends to Hart and I liked how they called him out when he was being mopey.

The other interesting part of the book was the very intriguing world that the author created with its gods and their mythology, the death rituals, the zombie like drudges etc. It was fleshed out enough that it gave us context and rounded off our characters’ personalities but the author still managed to keep the focus more on the relationships and romance, with fantasy just feeling like a necessary backdrop.

Overall, I thought this was a fun book with its serious moments and exploration of grief and loneliness and the audiobook narrated by Michael Gallagher and Rachanee Lumayno kept me hooked all the way through. Do check it out when you are in the mood for something lighthearted and not fantasy heavy.

I love how so many things happened in the book. I could not keep myself from the book because it was so good

What a lovely read.
It was definitely a lot to take in at first, with all the world building. You start to pick up and create the world in your head pretty quickly after a few chapter. But Hart & Mercy are amazing characters who have a lot of growth in this book and it’s really great yet heartbreaking to see.

The Undertaking of Hart & Mercy starts off with an undertaker, Mercy, taking in bodies brought in by Hart. Things arise, there’s mystery, and there’s some tension and spice.

It’s definitely a cute love story with some mystery but also almost a story about figuring out who you are. I laughed at the humor. And I unexpectedly bawled my eyes out.

Really appreciated getting an ARC for this and very happy to share my total enjoyment of this book!

Also the cover is SO PRETTY and snagged me in right away.

This is....oddly a book that is a new spin for the romance genre that doesn't bring much newness to the table???

I know that's a weird way of saying how I feel about this book. I think this is a pretty classic romance story with some very familiar miscommunication/"keeping secrets that shouldn't be kept" tropes. So if you don't mind reading a book that is a new iteration on that theme, you'll probably enjoy this. It's a comforting/cozy romance with an added layer of light fantasy and themes of death.

The biggest miss here for me was the world-building. It was convoluted. There's a poem that unsuccessfully tries to explain a religious system that needs much more untangling than it is given. I do appreciate new views on life, death, grief, etc., but I'm not sure this was executed quite well enough. That being said, there are some cute and fun elements to the world, notably the Klune-esque mail delivery system that is adorable and also quite sassy.

This is worth a read for those looking for a slightly macabre interpretation of well-loved romance themes.

Thanks so much to Orbit and NetGalley for the review copy!

Thank you to Orbit Books and NetGalley for providing me with this ARC!

The Undertaking Of Hart and Mercy is a retelling of You've Got Mail, the quintessential 90s romantic comedy starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. There's just one teensy difference: zombies. Yes, you read that right. The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy is truly a unique experience with its fantasy world, brand of humor, and romance, and I both laughed and cried while reading it. Unfortunately, the novel doesn't quite manage to pull off everything it sets out to accomplish. 

First of all, the romance, which was the main reason I chose to read this book, is cute, but not the most well executed. The first time the male and female leads meet, we read from the male perspective, and though he's being nasty to Mercy, he's admiring her breasts, and lamenting how unfair it is that this shrew of a woman is so attractive. Now this may be a realistic portrayal of a man and his inner thoughts, but if so, it was a little too realistic for me. I like some fantasy with my romance novels and I like when the male leads at least treat women with some respect while admiring them.  

"'Welcome to Birdsall & Son. How can I help you?' Hart stood up—and up and ip—towering over Mercy as her stomach (hopefully) sank down and down. 'Oh. It's you,' she said, the words and the unenthusiastic tone that went with them dropping off her tongue like a lead weight. Hart resisted the urge to grind his molars into a fine powder. 'most people start with hello.' 
'Hello, Hart-ache,' she sighed.
'Hello, Merciless.'"

But to be fair, Hart and Mercy are both awful to each other for reasons that are never really explained. They're supposed to be the quintessential enemies-to-lovers story, but while Tom Hanks is running a new corporate book empire that drives Meg Ryan's local book store out of business in You've Got Mail, Hart actually gives Mercy's struggling undertaking company business—as a Marshall he brings in the unidentifiable zombie corpses, which gets her much needed money from the government—so it's hard to see why this makes them enemies in the first place. Though near the end of the book, Hart explains that he thought Mercy was just trying to profit off of deaths, this is a pretty weak and unbelievable explanation, not only because Mercy never displays anything remotely like this behavior, but also because he is supposedly a pretty smart guy. I don't know how we are supposed to believe that Hart doesn't see that her competitor, Cunningham's, is the one actually taking advantage of grieving people and trying to form a monopoly.

But getting to the main premise of The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy, the two unknowingly form a friendship through anonymous letters pretty early on. These exchanges quickly become very important to both Hart and Mercy, despite the basic content of their letters. I've had more meaningful conversations with my internet friends than these two people have in their own letters, but for some reason, this apparently counts as a deep, pivotal, and romantic connection. Before long, Hart and Mercy are desperate to meet the person on the other side of the pen and paper, which just like in, You've Got Mail, goes anything but smoothly. 

When things go south with their romance, I don't really understand why they do. The whole conflict makes no sense to me, as not only could it be solved with a simple conversation, but then [spoiler] Hart tries to get himself killed after Mercy breaks up with him, [spoiler] which seems like a pretty big red flag to me, but literally none of the characters see this as remotely concerning in the novel.[/spoiler] It was also completely bizarre and unrealistic to me how Mercy dealt with the aftermath of this situation, which I don't want to spoil, but I definitely had trouble suspending my disbelief with how Mercy handled things.

"I'm an undertaker, or at least, I have been for the past few months. I salt bodies and wrap them in sailcloth and sing the incantations over them. I build boats for the dead and send them where they need to go. I love what I do, helping souls find rest in the House of the Unknown God, and comforting the living in the process."

Despite the imperfections of the romance, I still somehow managed to find The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy cute, though not at all as heartwarming or convincing as the relationship in You've Got Mail. Even if not as well carried out as the 90s classic rom-com, I really enjoyed the humor that ran throughout the novel, and loved that Mercy wanted to take over her father's undertaking business, something that was originally intended for her brother to do, as apparently undertaking is typically viewed as man's job. Her determination to keep the business afloat and to get to the bottom of the mystery of why there is a sudden influx of zombies, at the same time as being a loving daughter and sister is a very sympathetic plight. Her entire family was also a hoot, their banter continually cracking me up. 

I also liked the idea of the world The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy took place in, though it too, is inadequately explained. Despite being charming and wacky, the descriptions of the world and the way it works were not the most coherent and often described in what felt like sporadic and thin information dumping. For instance, there's demigods, strange animal creatures named nimikilim who deliver mail, people drive autoducks for some reason (I must have somehow missed this explanation), and there is a whole Old Gods versus New Gods thing going on that is very reminiscent of the Titans versus Zeus and friends in Greek mythology. Hart and Mercy live on this mystical island(?) called Tanria, but I never fully grasped why it's different and how it's related to the rest of the world.

This is most definitely not my first fantasy world, so I really just think the explanations surrounding it were lacking and lost in the face of the humor and romance. But the world itself, contemporary but with extra spice in the way of fantasy/science-fiction, reminds me a lot of TJ Klune's books, like The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door.  And those that love those novels for their LGBT+ romances will be happy to know that The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy also features more than one LGBT+ romance, though these romances are not the focus of the novel.

If you don't look too hard at the issues with the romance and the logistics of the world, The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy is a sweet and light read, full of plenty of heart (pun intended), and perfect for fans of both fantasy and romance. However, if you compare the novel to the movie it's based on, You've Got Mail, which thankfully I haven't seen in years (but has always been a favorite), the novel doesn't surpass its inspiration, and even pales in comparison. Regardless, I enjoyed reading The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy a lot and would definitely pick up other works written by the author in the future.

This book was so heart-warming and emotional and I really loved it!! I don’t really get the Howl’s Moving Castle comparisons, but it was such a good read nonetheless! It reminds me more of Abarat or Terry Gillian’s work or the movie Wristcutters with the combination of emotion and bizarre, but relatively simple worldbuilding. It definitely makes your heart ache and I cried A LOT but it’s so so good.

The characters totally won me over here! Mercy and Hart are both lonely, but so reluctant to show their vulnerability that they come off prickly, which causes them to get off on totally the wrong foot with each other. When the book opens, they are already acquainted and the wrong kind of sparks fly when they have to deal with each other in the course of their occupations - Mercy is an undertaker and Hart is a Marshall who all too frequently has to deliver bodies to Mercy's family's struggling business.

They were both pretty annoying in the beginning, but I fell in love with them both when they started opening up (unbeknownst) to each other through letters.

But the side characters were also great! Mercy's family, Hart's coworkers, and the demigods(?) who work as mail carriers were all entertaining, funny, and loveable. There's LGBTQIA+ rep in the best way possible, meaning those characters were just there, existing, part of everyday life, accepted, loved, and not discriminated against in any way.

The only gripes I have pertain to the world building. I never truly got a handle on some of it, and fantasy is my favorite genre, so I'm absolutely used to picking up details about imaginary and different worlds, but some things here are still a mystery. The equimaris they ride and the autoducks they drive made me think at first that this was a mostly water-based world (which would've been so cool!), but then it wasn't actually? I would've loved more descriptive information about the mounts and the vehicles and just the world in general to have a better vision of things, but it was still very enjoyable thanks to the loveable characters!

I received an advance digital copy for review from the publisher through Netgalley, which I appreciate very much. All opinions are my own and unbiased.

Two sworn enemies, an undertaker, Mercy Birdsall, and a Marshal who brings in bodies for her to process, Hart Ralston, make for an unlikely duo. Both feel isolated and lonely and inadvertently start exchanging anonymous letters to each other. This leads to an interesting romance developing between them in the sweetest way possible.

The setting for this book is a little bit confusing to start - there are demi-gods and drudges (more or less zombies) and other magical creatures that make the setting very different and enjoyable. There are also some lovely side characters and a good supporting plot surrounding an undertaking scandal and Mercy's attempts to keep her family business afloat.

Overall a fun and quick read.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley. This review contains some mild spoilers.

A short summary of this book is: Hart is a cantankerous demigod marshal who hunts zombies in a world that contains portals, old gods, new gods, once-divine-now-mail-carrying talking animals. Mercy is an undertaker who cares for the dead in her father’s undertaking shop, and is one of three very loud and close siblings. Both of these people hate one another because of a misunderstanding neither of them cleared up for four years. Hart one day sends a letter along to no one in particular about his loneliness and the mail-carrying talking animals deliver it to Mercy. They begin an anonymous correspondence with one another and fall in love. Shenanigans ensue.

There were enjoyable things in this book: Mercy’s family was sweet to read about. Hart’s journey to slowly accept that people love him is engaging. Hart’s relationship with his apprentice was genuinely heartwarming. The relationship building was by far the strongest part of this novel.

To be honest, quite a bit of it did not work for me. I don’t mind a maximalist plot out of hand, but there were very dramatic tone shifts that were off-putting and hard to follow. Below is a list of the different storylines that were juggled in this:

- Mercy and Hart’s letters
- Mercy and Hart’s eventual romantic relationship
- Mercy wanting to be the official undertaker even though women are allegedly not allowed
- Mercy hiding that her brother was supposed to study undertaking and hid that he flunked out three years before
- Mercy hiding that her father received a business buy-out offer
- Hart is a demigod and he has a lot of feelings about it
- Hart doesn’t know if he can die and he has a lot of feelings about it
- Hart is grieving a lot of people
- Hart must teach an apprentice
- Mercy decides she’s going to fight the buy-out offer
- Hart wants to know about why he sees a mysterious door in a forbidden part of the island
- Hart decides to go Handle the mysterious door
- A notable plotline about corporate malfeasance

Which is a lot to keep track of over the course of the novel, and they lend themselves to a jerky narrative.

A great deal of the conflicts within the book, at times, feel contrived. The reasons for several arguments seem to be misunderstandings that could be easily cleared up, or very benign exchanges that make a character unreasonably angry. There is a particular fight in the first half of the book where the audience is supposed to believe a benign thing Mercy has the same moral weight as her brother’s very significant deception. Her brother faces little consequences, while Mercy is temporarily ostracized. It’s completely unbelievable.

There are a few inconsistencies that could have been left out as well. In this world, we are told women are not allowed to inherit undertaking businesses. There is no other situation described in this book where gender seems to impact any other social institution. Then, it turns out that it’s not even a true roadblock. Once Mercy admits she wants to take on the business, everyone just agrees and nothing stops them. There are no legal or social ramifications for this.

The romance between Hart and Mercy can be sweet. There are a couple of troubling word choices during sex scenes (”tongue slathering” was a particularly unfortunate one). It can take a reader out of the story.

The last third of the book introduces a mystery into corporate malfeasance of a competing undertaker and while it has been mentioned earlier in the book, the actual focus on solving the mystery doesn’t happen until almost the end. When it does, it’s very quick and resolved almost instantly despite the widespread ramifications of the actual crime. I would not have minded this addition if the mystery had been more significant from the beginning.

Overall, the book attempted to juggle many nuanced things at once but seemed to be having an identity crisis at the same time. I wish I enjoyed this more, since the premise was so compelling.

"I wonder, would either of us bother to scratch the surface if we knew each other in person? Or would we pass each other on the street and never bother to look? Knowing myself (grumpy, crotchety, curmudgeonly), I suspect the latter, which is why I'm grateful for your letters. I hope you'll write soon.

Sincerely,
Your Friend"

Hart penned an anonymous letter to no one, baring his loneliness for no one in specific to read, so the last thing he ever expected was to receive an anonymous letter BACK...

Hart, the grumpy demigod/Tanrian marshal whose job is to hunt down drudges and bring those bodies to undertakers, lives a lonely existence. He only has a handful of people in life that he's ever fully cared about, both dead and alive.

Mercy Birdsall, an undertaker, is doing everything in her power to keep her family business afloat. As an undertaker, she gives the the dead the respectful sendoff to the afterlife that they deserve. The only sour spot in her daily activities are moments where she has to interact with Hart, or as she likes to call him, "Hart-ache," which Hart then bites back with "Merciless," as he's not very fond of her either.

Mercy receives a letter in the mail addressed to "a friend," and as stress and secrets in her own life take over, Mercy feels compelled to anonymously write back...

Be STILL my heart: I LOVED this book. I WAS OVER THE MOON AS I WAS READING THIS.

This is the enemies-to-lovers, fantasy/real world/dystopia, anonymous-letter-exchange, book of my dreams. There are even TALKING ANIMALS that work for the postal service (and yes, they're assholes and they're hilarious).

I sobbed my way through the last hour of reading this. For about 20 pages, I couldn't get to the end of a page with having to blow my nose. This had me in SHAMBLES, but I loved every SECOND OF IT.

Both characters had so much depth and full backgrounds to them. The contrast between their lives and watching their lives mesh together was so special, and I was completely invested in their character arcs from the start.

The secondary characters in this were also fantastically written! They made Hart and Mercy's backstories a million times stronger and I was fully invested in all of their stories, as well.

This plot line was much different than anything else I've ever read and I loved it to bits! If you're feeling like you want to read a fantasy/romance, look no further! I already can't wait to revisit this world and these characters again.

Thank you to Megan Bannen, Orbit Books, and NetGalley for an early copy in exchange for an honest review!

RATING: 5 out of 5

Equal parts gruesome and sweet! This book is totally out of my reading comfort zone, but I knew I had to get my hands on it after seeing someone hyping it online as Six Feet Under meets You've Got Mail. A spot on description for this quirky epistolary enemies-to-lovers slow-burn fantasy romance! Such a fun read. Recommend to readers with a strong stomach and a penchant for unique world building!