Book Review (27).

Dearly Departed (Gone With the Respiration #1)

by Lia Habel 

Publication: 29th September 2011

Publisher: Doubleday/Random House Australia

Pages: 451

Genre: Steampunk

Age Appropriate: Young Adult

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?

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

My Thoughts.

The year is 2195 a lot of countries have been wiped out, there's been a second American Civil War and unbeknownst to most people the world is inhabited by Zombies.

The world has gone back to the Victorian era, same clothes, same prejudices where those who have money are in higher standing than those who don't.

It has been a year since Nora Dearly lost her Father  to a disease and in that time she's been at an all girl's school with her best friend Pamela 'Pamma'.

While at home Zombies break in and while Nora is trying to escape is kidnapped by another group of Zombies (who are the good guys) and take her to their base, the captain of the Zombies Bram is instantly attrcted to Nora although it takes her a while to warm up to him as well as his Zombie friends.

Meanwhile back at her home in Elysian Fields the disease has struck turning a lot of Nora's villagers into Zombies and Pamma is stuck in the middle.

There are alternating chapters in this book told from five people's pov's which I think definately adds to the story so you know what's happening to everybody.

I loved Nora and her sarcasm and the fact she loved watching war documentaries, not what a well bred Victorian girl should be interested in at all, and Bram well what can I say for a dead guy he seems pretty hot and the way he comes to care for Nora is so sweet.

This book is my first ever Zombie book and it definately won't be my last, I never thought the subject could keep me entertained let alone for over 400+ pages, that just goes to show the brilliance of Lia Habel's writing, bringing to life something that that's made me fall in in love with characters that are usually used in horror plots.

I highly reccomend this book.

I give this 4/5

A huge thanks to Dorothy @ Random House Australia.