Genre: Dark Fantasy
LGBTQ+ Category: Trans MTF
Reviewer: Beáta
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About The Book
After her mother’s death, Isabella put her dreams on hold to take over the family business—the Fandelli Funeral Home. She’s back in Wyrdwood, single, fighting with her sister, and trying hard not to act out in frustration. It’s hard to be the responsible one, especially when that’s the last thing you want.
When the beat drops, people die.
After a moonlit rave, a young woman ends up on Isabella’s slab. The evidence suggests it was no ordinary overdose, and more deaths follow. As Isabella investigates, she attracts the attention of the killer. He chooses her to be Bacchus’s Bride, the one who will bring about human extinction.
Can you flirt with evil without losing everything?
The Review
Set within the broader world of Wyrdwood, where humans and magical beings coexist, The Reluctant Undertaker introduces a new set of characters (and so can be read without knowing the other books). Worth noting: While the Catsitter’s Conundrum is advertised as “cozy mystery” (I have not read it, so I can’t verify that it is), The Reluctant Undertaker is clearly marked as “dark fantasy”. And it actually IS dark. Please be mindful of this, and pay attention not to get the two books mixed up.
The story follows two sisters, Isabella and Bluciel, who reunite after their mother’s death. For generations now, their family has been in charge of the town funeral home, but there is a good chance of that changing, as 1) Isabella is very averse to the idea of living in Wyrdwood, and 2) their inheritance is blocked from them, until they can find a mysterious lost brother none of them knows anything about. To complicate things further, a series of violent deaths are shaking up the town. Young people keep getting murdered at what appear to be orgies, and whoever is responsible has set his eyes on Isabella…
I would like to once again stress that this book is dark. The depictions of sexual violence in it are to be taken seriously. It also very much reads like the beginning of a series, and by the tone of it, things are not necessarily going to go very well for our protagonists in the future, either.
The most special thing about this book is without doubt the narrative style: It is being told by a ghost haunting Isabella (and sometimes, Bluciel), watching her without her being aware of it. She is their father’s great-great-grandmother, the woman who moved into Wyrdwood to open the funeral home, and has been following the family matriarch ever since her death. She brings her own biases to the story, it resulting in a very interesting mix between a third person limited POW and a first person narrator. Since she is originally Italian, and only learned English after her death, she mixes in quite a lot of Italian words. I usually very strongly dislike mixing languages this way, but in the case of this book, it really does work well, and helps to add a special tone and personality to the writing.
I also really liked the characters of Isabella and Bluciel, they were both extremely relatable, and their relationships to each other and their recently deceased mother all felt very authentic, and complex in the way family in Real Life is complex.
As to the story, it was indeed a mystery. Which it is advertised as. So, good job, no real notes on that side.
All in all, I found the book quite enjoyable, although I admit that it is not quite my cup of tea. But this is entirely a question of personal taste, and I am still happy that I read it. I am absolutely certain that the right audience will enjoy this book very much.
The Reviewer
Beáta Fülöp is an aspiring filmmaker and writer. She identifies as aromantic and asexual, and has an autistic Special Interest in the representation of minorities. One day, she will use this knowledge in her own stories. Until then, she is happy to sit here and give her opinion on other people’s hard work.