The funeral home in this small Southeastern Texas town, has been run by the Evans women for generations. Currently it's Ducey, Lenore, and Grace, as Luna is still a high school student. It's 1999 and while they've had a sixteen year reprieve since That Godawful Mess, things around town have started to... come back. And part of the Evans' job is not only to put the dead to rest, but to make sure they stay dead. And when bodies start coming to their business in... a restless state, they know the Godawfulness is back. And it's also finally time to tell Luna about the family legacy, and also the truth about her father.
Meanwhile, the town Sheriff and the Deputy are also putting the pieces together. The Sheriff was around for the Godawful Mess and has never forgiven the Evanses, especially Ducey. And when a strange boy comes to town, and people start to disappear, it's time to prepare to protect their town and their family again.
I normally can't do horror novels--haven't read one in over twenty years as then I can't sleep later. But this one was worth pushing through! I had to read it during the morning, with a lot of daylight hours (and distractions) between the book and bedtime, but it was worth it. This book was funny and pulled in a lot of appropriate and era-specific trends and tropes (the new boy dresses in a trench coat like the "Trench Coat Mafia" teens of Columbine High School infamy, and I also got vibes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer--the movie, not the TV show.) It was occasionally appropriately gross, and the ending was a terrific dénouement. I won't be reading another horror book anytime soon, but I'm glad I made an exception for this one.
This book is published by Minotaur Books, a division of Macmillan, my employer.
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