Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard

Philadelphia 1876. The Dead are rising. A zombie delivers a letter to Eleanor Fitt. Whoever controls the Dead Army has her brother. She avoids her mother's choice of husband for the lab of Spirit Hunters, including the maddeningly stubborn yet handsome Daniel. The situation threatens her reputation, and the lives of everyone in the city.

My Thoughts:
It took me a while to get into this book. I read the first chapter then put it down for a while because I wasn't interested it. I mean zombies? Really?

But then I picked it up again and read the whole thing in two days. There was just so much to love here!

First of all, I loved Eleanor. I loved that she was strong and brave and smart but Dennard never said any of that. Eleanor was just like that. As a reader we were shown Eleanor's character without being told Eleanor's character. Which was perfect. I loved the writing style, the quality (after the first chapter) of writing and the way characters were written. Loved it. I'm a new fan of Susan Dennard.

All the other characters were also well-developed and well-rounded. And they spoke like real people... in the 1800s. It was like a dark, steampunk Jane Austin novel. Which was really fun. Another thing that I loved was that there was a nice romance element but it didn't overwhelm the story. Nor was it some kind of super-passionate, love-trumps-anything-else-going-on type of affair. It was naturally-evolving and moved at a normal pace. Mostly. But it was still yummy. Although entirely clean.

One thing that bugged was that the huge reveal at the end wasn't surprising at all. It was one of those things you guess after the first chapter but hope it incorrect because it's just so obvious. Oh, well.

Anyway, it was fun. It was clean. It was well-written and really entertaining. Go read it.

Sexual Content: Mild
Language: Mild
Violence: Moderate
Drugs/Alcohol: None