Book Review: Dearly, Departed ARC

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday Childrens (29 Sep 2011)
• ISBN-10: 0857530003
• ISBN-13: 978-0857530004

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.

Dearly, Departed is part of the new craze sweeping the YA market – zombies. The author takes on an awesome adventure of love, daring, upper classes, war and betrayal. And I loved every moment of it.

Nora Dearly is a high society ‘New Victorian’ girl. When she returns home from boarding school, a year since her father, Dr Dearly, passed away, Nora encounters a strange man. A man who insists he knows her father and wants to reunite the pair. He is chased away before Nora can even consider his offer. But meeting him wasn’t the strangest thing to happen to Nora.

One evening, a swarm of zombies descend on her house, intent on making a meal out of her. The man returns again for Nora, swooping her out of danger…and landing her in even hotter water. The man is Bram – sixteen year old captain of the zombie army, dangerously good-looking even in death, and apparently one of the good guys. Though convincing Nora is a challenge of an after-lifetime.

The book splits between a few various characters – Nora and Bram primarily. This means we don’t miss a second of the action and get to see the world of Lia Habel through different eyes.

I absolutely adored Bram and Nora – their feisty relationship and tenderness drew me to the story like a moth to the flame. The action pitched with each passing page, new information and feelings making the book completely irresistible.

Nora and Bram were two of the most charming characters I’ve come across in a good long while, and I sincerely hope there is a sequel to Dearly, Departed. Because frankly, the world just isn’t as entertaining without them in it.