I love it when book characters do enemies-to-lovers well. I want to not only see but believe that they dislike each other. How they’re annoyed with each other and how that turns to tolerating each other… And then love. Hart and Mercy do it so well – how could I not love it? One thing I love is pet names in books. I like them even more with enemies-to-lovers as you can be SURE the irritating nicknames will turn into being said lovingly. In here Mercy uses Hart-ache, and Hart says Merciless and my heart practically soared.

Bannen did a great job with Hart and Mercy’s personalities. Even though I know I don’t like communication like this, I still wanted them to work it out, to not be mad at each when it would eventually crash and break apart. I liked how they poured their hearts out to each other in the letters (not knowing it was the other, of course) and then disliking each other when meeting physically. I kept yelling at them “DON’T YOU KNOW (but of course they don’t).

I’ll admit the world-building is quite confusing and I certainly didn’t understand everything, nor do I intend to understand everything. I’ve learnt there’s an art in letting yourself not understand books fully and it can be great! Honestly I could in fact write a whole post about that . Maybe I’ll understand it a second or third time around, but it took a while to wrap my head around the dead and their rules? Appendixes? Basically I just told myself “right, they’re zombies”  and that was enough for me! Not understanding the world-building luckily didn’t stop me from enjoying it – which I’m so glad about. It is quite an interesting world, though, so absolute kudos to Bannen that even though she made a confusing world (for me); it was still enjoyable all the way through. The plot goes hand-in-hand with the world-building, which I liked. I was able to understand the plot a bit more because there was a whole mystery subplot.

The audiobook is great if you’re an audio fan like me. I liked both narrators and I felt like they really brought the book and world to life. I think that’s especially something seeing as I definitely wasn’t really planning to read this at the start. If you’re looking for a world-building and romance heavy book I recommend this one! Now and then I did find fault with their communication issues – I just want everyone to talk to each other properly! Thankfully that and the Western setting wasn’t an issue and I’m glad I overcame that because Bannen cemented herself as a favourite now!