The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy
Megan Bannen's The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy, published in 2022, is a charming, deeply romantic fantasy that takes its inspiration from You've Got Mail and drops it into a sun-baked Wild West full of zombies. Hart Ralston is a Marshal of the Tanrian Wastes, the only man on patrol in a stretch of frontier where the recently dead routinely climb out of their graves and have to be put down again. Lonely after a bad breakup and worse losses, he writes a long, despairing letter to a fictional friend named Birdie and slips it into a magical post box. The reply changes his life. Mercy Birdsall is the second-generation owner of Birdsall and Son, Undertakers, a struggling family business in the dusty town nearest Hart's beat. She is also the woman Hart has clashed with in person nearly every time he has come in to deposit a body. Neither knows that the warm, witty pen pal they are slowly falling in love with is the same person they cannot stand across a counter. Bannen's worldbuilding is wonderfully strange, but the novel's center of gravity is the love story: kind, hopeful, and a balm for any reader who needs reminding that the right person sometimes is the one already standing in front of you.
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In the desert frontier of Tanria, half-elf marshal Hart Ralston rides alone hunting risen bodies, while in the small border town of Eternity, Mercy Birdsall runs her family's funeral parlor. After a bad day at the parlor, Mercy writes a stranger an anonymous letter that finds Hart out on patrol.
The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy was written by Megan Bannen and published in 2022. It is part of the cozy fantasy and fantasy romance crossover wave alongside Legends and Lattes.
Yes. The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy contains explicit on-page romance scenes, around 3 to 4 out of 5 on the spice scale. The romance between an undertaker and a federal marshal is central.
Yes. The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy contains explicit on-page romance scenes, around 3 to 4 out of 5 on the spice scale. The romance between an undertaker and a federal marshal is central.
The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy is 1 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy takes most readers under an hour to finish.
The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy is a standalone novel by an unknown author, not part of a series.
The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
