This is a science fiction/fantasy version of You've Got Mail/The Shop Around The Corner/She Loves Me, only without the two being actual feuding coworkers (more like client and customer). I loved this, the only issue I had with it being that frankly, the worldbuilding going on here is a bit hard to explain. I cannot claim that I quite understood this old school alternate universe with old gods, new gods, and here's a magic world where we used to keep gods and now humans can get into it and get themselves in trouble thing. (This review does better at it.) I do note that gods can procreate and produce demigods with powers/possible immortality, which seems useful in certain professions. Anyway, people who head into the land of Tanria, if they get killed there, can get turned into drudges (basically zombies), and they're required to book a funeral package before they go.
This is how Tanrian Marshal Hart Ralston, cranky demigod still mourning the losses of his family/mentor/dog, runs into Mercy Birdsall, the undertaker-in-all-but-name at Birdsall and Son. (Unfortunately, the son turns out to get grossed out at bodies, secretly changed his major at college, and decides he wants to be a chef.) These two got off to a bad start and have been sniping at each other every time Hart has to drop off a body. Added bonus is when Hart gets assigned a new kid to mentor (with the name "Penrose Duckers," which never ceases to amuse me) and the new kid falls madly in love at first sight with Mercy's little brother.
I note this world also has immortal animal beings who used to deliver mail to the gods and now deliver mail to humans. When Hart's feeling mopey AF again, he writes an anonymous letter to "A Friend" and posts it with no one to mail it to. But the nimkilim postal carrier who gets it decides to mail it by heart to Mercy, who reads it, is intrigued, and writes back. And seriously? Their letters? These are good. I've never been a fan of the generic "dear friend" letters I've heard in other properties and rambling about pencils, but these two legitimately show personality and flair and hint at their lives without giving it too obviously away. Those letters work and hooked me, thankyouverymuch. Both of them are secretly angsty AF and get this about each other.
However, their eventual meeting date goes pretty much the way it does in all the other stories (i.e. unrevealing to one party and poorly), but Hart and Mercy end up hitting it off on a more personal level (and it's hot). This leaves Hart feeling squeamish AF about revealing the truth (I'm not sure why? Why wouldn't she like you when she knows?). Meanwhile, the drudge population is going up, the rival chain business owner is trying to buy out the Birdsalls, and Hart's got a really weird personal mystery going on in Tanria regarding his powers and seeing a replica of his family home that was quite intriguing.
The ending, well, that's where science fiction comes in, is what I'll say to that. I also appreciated that for once, the couple wasn't some kind of work rivals and that kind of plot didn't go on here.
Overall, I was captivated by the characters, both main and side, and loved hanging out with them all. It made me want to write an anonymous letter to "A Friend" and see what that got me, but alas, without magical animal people about, that's probably doomed. The only thing that isn't great in this is my confusion on the whole gods/worldbuilding concept, but overall I guess I didn't super need that to be clear for me to get what the characters were dealing with.
Four and a half stars.
Comments