Lindy Ryan returns with Another Fine Mess, the second book in the Bless Your Heart series. This horror novel manages to combine mystery, humor, and compassion for others into a thrilling novel. The Evans women have kept the undead from rising in their southeast Texas town for over a century. However, sometimes the dead rise so quickly it can be overwhelming.

Lenore Evans and her granddaughter, Luna, are the only women left alive in the Evans family after losing the others recently. With limited information and a new victim, Lenore, Luna, and the new sheriff Roger Taylor must work to understand the family legends and put the dead to rest. As the body counts increase, the pressure is on to solve the problem and save the town. The Evans family runs the local funeral parlor, but they are missing vital information needed to defend the living from the dead. There’s more than one type of monster around.

This version of a vampire-like story is atmospheric and unique. It full of family drama, friendships, trust issues, and secrets that shouldn’t have been secrets. While horrifying deaths are a part of the story, there are also tender, heartwarming, and heartbreaking moments scattered throughout the novel along with bits of humor.

The intriguing prologue is set seventeen years ago and features the family matriarch Priscilla Evans. It pulled me into the story and then cuts to a newspaper article in 1999. The novel is told from multiple points of view. While this worked part of the time and built suspense, at other times it felt choppy and adversely affected the pacing. Despite this, the book became a page turner with main characters that readers can empathize with and want to succeed. The fascinating plot had a few twists and turns and the characters had depth and came to life. There are also some devastating scenes for the main characters. While I guessed some of the items related to the mystery, this didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the story. There are still some unanswered questions in my mind. Will they be resolved in a third novel?

Overall, this is a dark, clever, and unsettling novel that was a fast read. Readers looking for a horror novel with shocking and disturbing details plus excellent characterization, secrets, and the supernatural will likely enjoy this novel. I recommend reading the first book in the series to fully understand the background events that are referred to in this one.

St. Martin’s Press – Minotaur Books and Lindy Ryan provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own. Publication date is currently set for April 15, 2025. This review was originally posted at Mystery and Suspense Magazine.

Another Fine Mess by Lindy Ryan is a fast-paced horror mystery. I haven't read the first book so the characters are new to me. The family of strong women is interesting especially as they deal with the horrors that are afflicting the town. They deal with spirits and some woo woo stuff with grace.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for my review copy.

Book #2 in the Bless Your Heart series finds the Evans women cleaning up another supernatural catastrophe in their Texas hometown. The dead keep rising and its up to the Evans women to keep them down. This time, the horror is more animalistic and closer to home. I would say you absolutely should read Bless Your Heart before diving into this one. It helps for context. Hopefully, this series keeps going for years to come because the Evans family is fascinating, hilarious and badass!

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for this digital e-arc.*

Honestly, I didn't realize this was a sequel and ended up not finishing it because I want to read the first book then came back to this one. That being said, I did enjoy the small bits that I did read and I think I might end up really liking this book.

Chaos ensues around the strong women characters the author creates, yet they remain strong and deal with it all head on. The plot was creepy and had goose bumps inducing vibes. I liked that the author added some new horror monsters to the plot, while continuing with the monsters she had already developed. It help to keep the plot fresh and exciting.

This review is entirely voluntary and reflects my personal opinions.

This was an enjoyable follow up to Bless Your Heart, taking place one month after we left the Evans women, funeral home proprietors, down two in their fight against the town's restless dead. I love the strong family ties between the women, as Luna and her grandmother, Lenore, come to terms with each of them losing their own mother, and Lenore her daughter to boot. But the dead don't stay dead in their tiny Texas town, and now a werewolf-like creature is wreaking havoc, eating pets, wildlife, and finally, townsfolk. The plot twist of the pricoloci was rather predictable, because hell hath no fury and all that, but there were some other plot twists that left me MAD. I'm definitely invested in book 3 now because I need to see how that will be resolved and hope Luna gets some closure and happiness.

🎧 Audiobook +📗 eBook: Another Fine Mess -Bless Your Heart #2

✍🏾 Author: Lindy Ryan-Read and gave Bless Your Heart 5 ⭐

📃Page Count: 304

📅Publication date: 4-15-25 | Read: 4-7-25

🏃🏾‍➡️Run Time: 10:46

🌎 Setting: Texas

👆🏾POV: 3rd multiple

Genre: Mystery/Thriller, Adult Fic

Tropes: supernatural beings, small town, family drama

⚠️TW: death of loved ones, grief, gruesome killings


🗣️Narrator: Stephanie Nemeth-Parker voices all the characters with standouts from Lenore, Luna, and Ducey. The reading style brought the text to life, and the author and narrator worked together perfectly. The pacing and flow allowed me to get lost in the story. The narrator paused and announced new chapters and there was a table of contents which helped me follow along.


Summary: Grace and Ducey both died saving their daughters, and Luna's boyfriend Andy met his end after killing the townspeople. A new killer starts another murder spree, and people are resurrected with the Evans women running the funeral parlor.


👩🏾 Heroine: Lenore Evans

👩🏾Heroine: Luna Evans


🎭 Side Characters:
*Ethel "Ducey" Evans-Lenore's mother, deceased
*Priscilla "Pie" Evans-Ducey's mother-deceased
*Grace Evans-Luna's mother-deceased
*Sheriff Roger Taylor-newly appointed, was in love w/ Grace
*Deputy Brandon Hinson-dating Kim Cole for 4 yrs
*Crane Campbell-Luna's friend in high school
*Kim Cole-hired at the Evans funeral parlor


🤔 My Thoughts: I love this paranormal series with a slice of life small town living. The surprise resurrections and reveal at the end was awesome. This reminded me of The Southern Vampire Mysteries, which was a classic urban fantasy.


*Spice: 0/5 🌶️
*Rating: 5/5 ⭐

🙏🏾Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books, Macmillan Audio, and Lindy Ryan for this ARC & ALC! I voluntarily give my honest review, and all opinions are my own.

4⭐️

This sequel proves that it's always a great time with the Evans Women. I loved that this book picked up pretty soon after the first book end so you got to see the effects of the deaths from the first book. I loved the way Lenore tried to make the funeral her own even though she knew how Ducey would have reacted. Bringing in Kim to work in the funeral home as well as help make sure the dead stayed dead was a great touch, especially since her family has supposedly betrayed the Evans' in the past.
I loved that the climax of the book happened at the school during the Homecoming Dance and how much harder that will make hiding things going forward. For all the jokes that Luna and her friends made about 'pulling a Carrie,' in the end the crowd of students running screaming from the school really matched that vibe. The hint of further backstory regarding Pie Evans and Luna's father really drew me in and I need more as soon as possible!

This book ended up being a great mix of light-heartedness mixed with gore and that's my favorite kind of horror.

Oh, and giving us Sissy's POV with her adorable little collar that she hates in the very first chapter was very rude and I think I need emotional compensation...


Thanks Netgalley and Minotaur Books for providing this ARC to me!

You know how some families pass down recipes? Yeah, the Evans women pass down how to keep the dead from rising—and something’s gone way wrong.

Here are Reasons to Read the Horror book:

📚 Reasons to Read Another Fine Mess
A Southern Gothic Spin on the Undead. This isn’t your average zombie story—it’s rooted in legacy, small-town secrets, and supernatural suspense.


Strong, Sassy Female Leads. The Evans women bring heart, humor, and serious grit as they battle rising corpses and family curses.


Mystery With a Horror Twist. The book blends a whodunnit vibe with eerie unearthed truths, raising the tension with every chapter.


Horror That Balances Heart and Humor. Despite the dead walking, there’s warmth, wit, and plenty of charm in this delightfully dark tale.

This book is the sequel to Bless Your Heart which I read last year. It does take place in the 90s so it also has a very cute nostalgia thing happening. There are multiple POV chapters but you are never confused because the voices are distinct and some characters only get 1 or 2. But on top of it all, it seems to be slowly building this community of women, despite killing off some main characters in both books. I love the mystery but would really like to go more complex into the thoughts of these characters because I like them so much.

Another Fine Mess by Lindy Ryan is an irresistible, fast-paced mystery filled with humor, heart, and horror. From the moment I picked it up, I was completely engrossed and couldn't bring myself to set it down.

This is book 2 of the series and I really wish I'd read book 1 before I took this one on. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this book even with the sometimes gruesome descriptions, and the next page would have me laughing out loud.

This book tells of a family of women who keep the dead, well, dead, while living their best lives. They seem to to engage with spirits and that woowoo stuff is sometimes sad and sometimes hilarious. I enjoyed the dialogue and heart the author put into this book. She must be from the south Texas area to 'get' these conversations perfectly written.

Four stars since I was not prepared for some of the horror aspects and that's not my favorite thing to read. I may change my tune once I go back and read the first book in the series!

Feeling a bit conflicted about this one- I enjoyed the first one but evidently did not remember enough about it and feel that that negatively impacted my reading experience. I felt thrown into the second one

BUT I love Ryan’s writing style, the characters, the quirkiness, that’s all excellent. I will still be promoting it because I see its value and Ryan’s talent.

Ｅｂｏｏｋ Ｒｅｖｉｅｗ
🌟🌟🌟🌟.2
Another Fine Mess is the sequel to Lindy Ryan's Bless Your Heart series. Texas, we have problems. The undead are not staying dead! Linda Ryan has done it again! We get to see more into Luna and Lenore's unique lives. I enjoyed this story a lot and would definitely recommend it. This cover art is also so eye-catching and beautiful.



Thank you, NetGalley, and St. Martin's Press for the ebook in exchange for my honest review.

I didn’t realize this was a sequel. I definitely need to read book one first. After 30 pages I was so lost.

Another Fine Mess with the quirky Evans family of undertakes is back. Something is tearing up pets and starts in on citizens. Its up to the quirky characters to solve who is doing this. Horror with a dash of down home craziness. Thanks #Netgalley and#Kensington for the eARC in exchange for a honest review. All opinions are mine.

This book was just as engaging and entertaining as the first one. I love the Evans women and you can feel their connections through the writing. Some parts were heartbreaking, some were gruesome, but all of the book was a good time. Highly, highly recommend Another Fine Mess and Lindy Ryan’s other works.

This southern horror follow-up to Bless Your Heart is full of charm, monsters, 1999 nostalgia, and a high body count! I fell in love with the Evans’ family women in Ryan’s series opener, and couldn’t wait to get back to this family of undertakers. Another Fine Mess, is just that; a MESS as a new type of monster begins tearing apart locals’ pets and then citizens. The Evan’s women have been hunting the undead for generations, but this new creature is beyond their knowledge and requires input and support from some new unlikely allies. Multiple POVs, witty humor, gruesome horror, and a propulsive mystery make this novel move along at a quick pace. I’ve grown quite attached to unique cast of quirky characters and I can’t wait to see how the series continues!

“The Evanses might be the weirdest family in the world, with an undead woman, a master strigoi, a moon child, and who knew what else in their strange little funeral parlor — but she hadn’t seen a group of monsters love each other this hard since The Munsters.”

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for my ALC; narrator, Stephanie Németh-Parker is phenomenal. Fantastic accent work, clear characterization, and heaps of emotion and wit make the audiobook such a fun time.

The Evans women are the key line of defense between the living and the dead in their town in southeast Texas. Problem is, now the dead are rising faster than they can get them back in the grave. And we, the readers, get to follow them on their quest to find out the truth about what is going on, and how to stop the violence before it escalates further.

Lenora Evans, and her granddaughter Luna are the main living protagonists in our tale-grandmother and granddaughter. Lenora is the steady wheel that keeps things running smoothly-despite all she has lost and grieved. She’s got grit, heart, and an unyielding determination to keep things as they’ve always been-with the Evans women keeping the town safe.

Luna knows what she is, and most especially, what she’s not. And despite loosing her mom, she must keep up normal teenage appearances-all while juggling duties at the funeral home. The only one who seems to under stand her is Crane-who accepts and cares for her just as she is. He’s her rock and steady place-even if it scares her to admit it.

I loved this take on a vampire story that Lindy crafts. You have monsters, family drama, witty and thoughtful characters, and deep buried secrets that come back to wreak havoc on the Evans clan, and the whole town. But there are also tender and heartbreaking moments that drawn empathy out of the reader. You feel the pain the characters experience because Lindy’s compelling prose strikes right at your heart. And the ending the author gives us is bloody, brutal, but sprinkled with hope; not completely whole, but not completely broken.

I confess that I didn’t read the first book in this series, but I now plan on going back and reading it. I feel like I need to meet the women for the first time again. Regardless, I still enjoyed, and recommend this novel. 4.5 stars

I wasn't the biggest fan of "Bless Your Heart," but I was incredibly intrigued about the ending of the book so I really wanted to give this series another shot. Sadly, pretty early on, I realized this definitely wasn't for me. I was so intrigued by the first chapter, but then the next chapter was in the perspective of a cat.... No thanks. Also that opened up to the book, again, having a thousand different perspectives instead of focusing on just a few and perfecting them. I will, unfortunately, be calling it quits here.

I cannot express how much I love this series! It’s such a unique spin on the “restless dead” tropes. First, the characters are INCREDIBLE. I love them so much. Maybe it’s because the Evans women remind me of my husband’s aunts in Kentucky. I always think of them when the Evans women are mentioned, and now I can’t help but wonder if his aunts are hunting vampires in their free time. The story is very well written and an absolute page turner, while still managing to be funny as hell. Ducey is an absolute delight with her snarky comebacks and no nonsense attitude. Lenore is worried about *all the things*. Luna is just trying to figure her life out with *all the things* looming over her. But the newer characters brought into this second book in the series really brought the women some answers, but gave them more questions than anything. This book was a great setup for the next one. I can’t wait to see what kind of shenanigans the Evans women get up to in book three! I’m climbing the walls waiting!

Huge thanks to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for sending me this ARC for review! All of my reviews are given honestly!