Guest Mini-Review: Dearly Departed by Lia Habel

Image from Amazon

Title: Dearly Departed

Series: Gone With Respiration #1

Author: Lia Habel

Publisher: Corgi Children's 

Publication Date: 7 June 2012

Source: Review Copy

Rating: 

Synopsis from Goodreads

Love can never die.

Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead—or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie?

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses.

But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead—and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead. But as is the case with the rest of his special undead unit, luck and modern science have enabled Bram to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.

In Dearly, Departed, romance meets walking-dead thriller, spawning a madly imaginative novel of rip-roaring adventure, spine-tingling suspense, and macabre comedy that forever redefines the concept of undying love.

GUEST REVIEW BY MADISON

Nora is attacked one night and carried away by an army of the living dead. don't get me wrong, these are the good guys sent to protect Nora from another group of living dead that want her well dead. The evil zombies want to kill Nora and are willing to feast on anyone in order to increase their numbers. Bram, one of the good undead, tries to earn Nora's trust but she wonders if she will ever be safe again.

My favorite part of the book was when Bram trying to earn Mora's trust uses the locks on his door. This is where they first started to bond, getting to know each other better and trust is built between them. I didn't like Bram's boss at all, he was cruel and unfair however his character was necessary to the plot.

I really enjoyed this book, it was thrilling and I am looking forward to reading the next one.