This was cute and campy with kind of easy to figure out twists. Definitely a nice break in between some serious books if you’re looking for an easy to read and fun book but nothing too groundbreaking.

Lindy Ryan’s new novel is set in 1999, Texas. The women of the Evans family have been running a funeral home for a long time. The dead are buried and thats it. Ducy Evans has been doing this for the past eighty years. She has passed this down to her daughter and the other women within the Evans family. All is well until the town gossip Mina’s body is brought into the funeral parlour and she comes back from the dead. Unfortunately for the Evans family it means the Strigoi are back, an original vampire they are all too familiar with. It is up to them to keep the town from spiralling and losing them amidst dealing with generational secrets that weren’t left buried.

This was a fun and thrilling story which I flew through. Straight away you gage the dynamics of the Evans family and the role they play in this town. Characters are relatable and their back stories are explored amidst the bodies that are turning up and not remaining dead. This then becomes a mystery everyone tries to solve while coping with some hard truths.

This horror novel was addictive to read. Straight away I was invested in finding out the Evans family secret. Many hints are dropped. Through dark humour and intense brutal scenes, this was an entertaining read.

In pre-millenial Texas, three generations of Evans women run a smalltown funeral parlour. Their business also covers protecting the town from Strigoi, the restless spirits of the dead. A major incursion, plus their granddaughter in high school causes big problems.

One look at the cover, you’d consider this to be both cute and arch. It’s not quite that, but the early sections work well - deep fried Southern wisdom, combined with some actually well-written gore (one victim is literally gnawed to death by a toothless pensioner).

Where the novel fails is in a clunking narrative and a mix of styles - high school novel, dark comic novel, police procedural and fantasy novel - and never really settles for either. The 1999 timeframe seems odd, but with a key event taking police 25 years before and with the way the novel ends; I feel this might be the last we’ve not seen of The Evan’s’. A sharper, more committed narrative might give the whole thing more bite, rather than gums. It’s published by Rebellion on 18th July and I thank them for a preview copy. #blessyourheart.

A gory vampire novel set in smalltown Texas. Essentially a very campy Buffy the Vampire Slayer set in the South, which reads more like YA than an adult novel. Too many characters and points of view, fairly obvious twists and repetitive writing. Not one for me.

I started this book thinking I was going to read about an empowered matriarchal family, and that's exactly what I got added to creepy moments, really gore deaths and a lot of laughing.
We start reading this book knowing something strange is going on with the Evans' family, which run the town's funeral parlor and whose variety of husbands/fathers passed away some years ago. The whole of the alive women in the family tree (great-grandmother, grandmother, mother and daughter) run the parlor as the family business, but they also run the people the put under the earth.
I loved the way Lindy Ryan was able to involve, not only the Evans' women in the narrative, but also the entire town by having one or two chapters per character who explained, in their own way, what was going on. I feel like she expressed very well the dynamics of a little town (in this case, a southern town in Texas, but I thinks is equivalent to any small town in the world), and through this way (the gossips, the familiarity, the small space in town...) the story was evolving and happening just beneath your nose.
I loved all the plot twists, all the jokes and the way the story is put. I'm not really a fan of scary scenes, but the way this book kept me on the edge of my seat every single time, that I enjoyed very much. I didn't realize before it was possible to be scared and also laugh at the same time.

Not much more to say. A good book to read whenever you need something fresh, entertaining and a little bit scary.

Thank you to NetGalley and Solaris for my digital review copy!

This book was a wild ride.

Set in a small southern town, it follows a family of women who own a funeral parlour dealing with strigoi (a type of vampire). The relationships of the 4 generations of women is absolutely at the core of this book. I loved reading about Ducey, Lenore, Grace and Luna and their familial bonds, as well as how they interact with their community (we do follow quite a few members of the town as we unravel what is going on).

It is a book with the pacing more on the slower side and if you combine that with how many POVs we follow, it means that it can get slightly confusing at times, but its worth it.

This book has some gloriously gory sections and I don't think I can think of oxblood in the same way ever again.

I'm excited to see where this series goes next!

To start, thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review Bless Your Heart.
Truthfully, I don't know where to start with this review. Bless Your Heart took me on a rollercoaster of emotions from start to finish in the best way possible. There is just so much I loved about this book. The exploration of the relationships between life and death, of mother and daughter, reciprocated and unreciprocated love, and how peoples lives can be woven together even in such significant and insignificant ways.
I was gripped from start to finish, and by the end, I was left in tears. I can't wait to see the road this series takes.

I absolutely loved Bless Your Heart by Lindy Ryan. This book is set in Texas in 1999 and follows the stories of the four generations of Evans women, the local funeral parlour owners.

To the outside world they appear as slightly odd, after all who has heard of women running a traditionally male business? But the women have an even stranger side, and must keep it a secret in order to protect their town. For the Evans women do more than just bury the towns dead; they ensure they stay dead…

When the towns popular gossip arrives at the funeral parlour having succumbed to cancer, the Evans’ suspect that something is up. Their fears are confirmed when Mina Jean starts to wake up. The Strigoi are back.

This was absolutely fab! A proper southern-hospitality horror that was equal parts humorous and nasty! The main characters were wonderful, particularly Ducey, who will forever be my hero. If you want a good gore-plentiful tale of small town shenanigans, this is your go-to!

Can’t thank netgalley and the publisher enough for this advanced copy.

This was a lot of fun! Even though it’s more of a fun, camp cosy horror there are parts of too much blood and gore which I didn’t like
I liked this but didn’t love it although it’s well written and has an interesting plot and cast of characters

3.5 stars
This was a well written and atmospheric book. I really enjoyed how swept away I became with the setting and the main characters. The plot was also super interesting, I particularly enjoyed how Luna’s character related to the dead rising. The final revelation wasn’t a massive surprise, but it still had me wondering if I had missed any other clues early on in the book. The pacing was a little slow for my liking, and the constant change of POVs got a little confusing at times, but this was still a well thought out and executed story.

This book was so much fun! Set in a small town in Texas, we follow four women of the Evans family who also happen to run a funeral home and have done for generations. Some strange things begin to happen when a dead body is brought to them and things are not quite as they seem... It says in the synopsis, so it's not a spoiler, but this is a vampire novel. And it's so original and fun and cosy and gory. The Evans women - Ducey, Lenore, Grace and Luna - are so well written, they literally popped out of the page and I could see them so clear in my head. Each had a different personality, their own quirks but they were family. Ducey Evans is such a legend, I love her.

I thoroughly enjoyed Bless Your Heart and Lindy Ryan's writing, so will definitely check out more books by her and hopefully this might become a series...? Also, how stunning is the UK cover?!

There was a lot I enjoyed about Bless Your Heart - the characters of the Evans women particularly, although at times I felt they could have been more fully fleshed out and wondered if I'd have felt more connected if the book focused more on just one or two of them. For example, the scenes with Luna and her friends were some of my favourite, with some really nice touches of humour, but I would have liked more of these and to feel I knew them all better.

The gore aspect didn't bother me but I didn't expect so much vomit, and the book comes with a major TW if you have emetophobia (or even if, like me, it's just not what you particularly want to read about what seems like every few pages).

I would definitely read another Lindy Ryan book because I felt this had a lot of promise; I guess I just sometimes wanted a bit more development.

This was really good fun.
I very much enjoy a story about the undead, and this managed to be bloody, and funny at the same time.
Some excellent lines from the women that had me smiling.
The women were all fab characters, a strong family holding things together.
Plenty of action too.
Glad I picked this one up.