These wandering spirits inhabit the bodies (and appendixes) of the recently deceased to wreak havoc on the living residents. Tanria is plagued by the threatening drudges. Mercy lives in magical Tanria, a place whose society appears to be an approximation of Appalachia or the midwest, but dropped in their own fantastical continent. Bannen breathes life onto the page with the Birdsall family who are equally hilarious, heartwarming, and frustrating to Mercy in a way readers with unhinged relatives can relate to. The Birdsall family (including her sister Lilian and Lil’s husband) are a cast of characters that could sustain their own novels. Though it’s named Birdsall & Son, Mercy is truly running the show, doing the work of many while she waits for her brother Zeddie to graduate from mortuary school. In it, you meet Mercy Birdsall, a woman doing her best to keep her family’s mortuary business afloat after her father suffers from health ailments. While the setting is primarily an Undertaker’s business, this novel is anything but lifeless.

Within the pages of this literary gem, you will find a beautiful slow-burn romance, lost souls (in more ways than one), and incredible world-building. Megan Bannen’s The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy is just such a novel. While it may still have some tropes we love (and may even be loosely based on a story we recognize), it is in itself wholly originally and defies expectations. Every once in a while, a book comes along that is able to stretch the formulaic conformity of its recognized genre.

The undertaking of hart