Dearly, Beloved by Lia Habel

Release Date: Out now!

Publisher: Del Rey Books

Pages: 496pgs

The Story

Can the living coexist with the living dead?

That's the question that has New Victorian society fiercely divided ever since the mysterious plague known as "The Laz" hit the city of New London and turned thousands into walking corpses. But while some of these zombies are mindless monsters, hungry for human flesh, others can still think, speak, reasons, and control their ravenous new appetites.

Just ask Nora Dearly, the young lady of means who was nearly kidnapped by a band of sinister zombies but valiantly rescued by a dashing young man . . . of the dead variety.

Nora and her savior, the young zombie soldier Bram Griswold, fell hopelessly in love. But others feel only fear and loathing for the reanimated dead. Now, as tensions grown between pro - and anti - zombie factions, battle lines are being drawn in the streets. And though Bram is no longer in the New Victorian army, he and his ex-cammando zombie comrades are determined to help keep the peace. That means taking a dangerous stand between The Changed, a radical group of sentient zombies fighting for survival, and The Murder, a masked squad of urban guerrillas hellbent on destroying the living dead. But zombies aren't the only ones in danger: Their living allies are also in The Murder's crosshairs, and for one vengeful zealot, Nora Dearly is the number one target.

As paranoia, prejudice, and terrorist attacks threaten to plunge the city into full-scale war, Nora's scientist father and his team continue their desperate race to unlock the secrets of "The Laz" and find a cure. But their efforts may be doomed when a mysterious zombie appears bearing an entirely new strain of the virus - and the nation of New Victoria braces for a new wave of the apocalypse.

Lia Habel's spellbinding, suspenseful sequel to Dearly, Departed takes her imaginative mash-up of period romance, futuristic thriller, and zombie drama to a whole new level of innovative and irresistible storytelling.

The Review

A big thanks to the publisher on netGalley for accepting my request in reading this book early!

In Lia Habel's debut novel, Dearly Departed, it was an interesting read for me. It wasn't exactly a fantastic book but it was an enjoyable one at the very least. Now I think what had drawn me into this world of Habel's in the first place was the way she handled zombies and how she represented in the book - not as mindless and flesh-eating creatures (okay there are some like that), but rather they were quite intelligent, interesting and surprisingly so very human, with even some that were pretty, handsome and charming too, which was a great take on the zombie genre. It added something unique. But as much as I hate giving an average 'Yeah, it was okay . . .' review for what I expected to be a very great read, unfortunately the sequel just didn't cut it for me and it didn't even convince me to love this series more and I kind of knew this would happen yet again.

Much like what I'd read from the first book, DEARLY, BELOVED followed exactly the same pacing as the previous book - slow and steady - and it was told through several perspectives once more. Argh! Like I said before . . . I knew this would happen again. I can handle two or three perspectives at one time, heck even the third perspective which I have come to favour over the years rather than the common first person perspective view, but with this book it had at least five POVs under its belt and it was god awful. I'm not kidding. Just awful. While I favoured only two character perspectives, both of which were the main characters of the story and whom I only wanted to read about - that being Nora and Bram, but as for the others I just felt like they added nothing really special to the story and I found them completely pointless to be honest with you. The only redemption that the book earned was with myself enjoying Nora and Bram's view of this bleak world and having some tension arising throughout the book between them until the tension blew everything into utter chaos. I like me some chaos, okay?

Character-wise and as I mentioned with the perspectives aspect, the only characters I really grew attached to and the only characters I really cared about were Nora and Bram. They are the ones who'd kept me going with this book. Together they grew closer and built on each other's strange worlds, not to mention they have some sizzling chemistry sparking between them, but even when they are in angst over certain things or even when they are apart, Nora and Bram somehow turn out to be two very great individuals. So I'm really thankful for their character growth in that. And that ending . . . god it was so out of the blue and so mushy mushy, but I still ended up really digging it so all of you romantic fans out there . . . you'll totally love it!

Overall, DEARLY, BELOVED may have failed to impress me but it was still a nice little follow up to the first book of the series and it'll interesting where the author takes us with the final installment of this YA series. Really interesting . . . especially when you consider how everything ended and all. Quite surprising!

The Rating

3/5 stars