Work at a funeral home can be mundane. Until you accidentally start bringing the dead back to life.
"...a clever, hilarious romp through a new magical universe" --Sarah Angleton, author of Gentleman of Misfortune
Cassie Black works at a funeral home. She's used to all manner of dead bodies. What she's not used to is them waking up. Which they seem to be doing on a disturbingly regular basis lately.
Just when Cassie believes she has the problem under control, the recently-deceased Busby Tenpenny insists he's been murdered and claims Cassie might be responsible thanks to a wicked brand of magic she's been exposed to. The only way for Cassie to get her life back to normal is to tame her magic and uncover Mr. Tenpenny's true killer.
Simple right? Of course not. Because while Cassie works on getting her newly-acquired magic sorted, she's blowing up kitchens, angering an entire magical community, and discovering her past is more closely tied to Busby Tenpenny than she could have ever imagined.
If you like contemporary fantasy with snarky humor, unforgettable characters, and paranormal mystery such as Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series or Wilkie Martin's Inspector Hobbes tales, you'll find it hard to pry yourself away from this first book of the Cassie Black Trilogy. Oh, and don't forget the piles of pastries....
The Cassie Black Trilogy is a darkly humorous fantasy with mystery, magic, and plenty of mishaps that takes you from the streets of Portland to the Tower of London. It's got magic and mystery, pastries and zombies, sentient gnomes and an evil wizard...because there's always an evil wizard, isn't there?
What readers have to say...
•"When I saw the book title…my first thought was, "another zombie apocalypse". A wonderful surprise greeted me with an entertaining story that was written with humor, a great story line and new twist on the undead."
•"Wow and wow again! I absolutely loved this book! You get such a feel for the characters and the story is so fast paced you don't want to put it down."
•"…suffused with dark humor and witty dialogue..."
•"The whole story was a bit of wild ride, but it was a ride I wanted to stay on all the way through! There is mystery that actually kept me guessing, there's humor, magic, and a unique storyline."
•"I was unable to put this down when I started reading it. The author combines humour with a fast paced murder mystery all packed into a funeral home."
Note: While this book delivers plenty of wry giggles and a few hexes, it's fairly clean with only an itty-bitty bit of light cursing, one fight scene, and no hanky panky or sexual situations.
•Selected as one of Apple's Most Anticipated Books of 2021
•Winner of the Novel Excerpt Prize from the League of American PEN Women
•Finalist in the Yeah You Write! Novel Contest