BooksOfTheMoon

Hart Ralston is a marshal, tasked with protecting the realm of Tanria from humans and zombies alike. Mercy Birdsall is an undertaker, taking quiet pride in her work. These two people hate each other, which is unfortunate, given how much of Mercy’s work comes from the marshals, including Hart. After yet another bruising encounter, Hart finds himself penning a letter to just “a friend” and, on a whim, posts it. Much to his surprise, he gets a reply, and a warm postal friendship soon builds up. No prizes for guessing who’s at the other end, or that sparks will fly when the anonymous “friends” eventually meet in person.

I love a good enemies-to-lovers story, and this one is a delight. We enter the story when Hart and Mercy are long-established enemies, and only gradually find out the history to this. To be honest, the initial argument doesn’t show either of them in a good light, and I don’t really see how a minor misunderstanding turned into such a big thing. But that’s something that does happen, doesn’t it? You’re having a bad day, and a small thing irritates and leaves a bad impression for the next meeting and before you know it, that initial grit has turned into an pearl of mutual hatred.

As well as our title characters, Hart is given an apprentice, Pen Duckers, who helps pierce the protective armour of loneliness that he’s put around himself. Partly because the people he cares about have died, and partly because he’s a demigod and doesn’t know if he’s mortal or not. The idea of everyone he cares about getting old and dying is too much for him to bear, so he’d rather not build up relationships at all.

Mercy, on the other hand, has a loving, if squabbling, family, but is struggling to hold the family business together, as her father gets older, and her brother shows no interest. It doesn’t help that everyone seem to think they know what’s best for her without actually asking.

The book certainly doesn’t stint on the lovers part of enemies-to-lovers! When Hart and Mercy eventually get together, there are some very steamy scenes. I thought it was very well done, but it’s one to look out for if you’re of a, shall we say, delicate constitution?

I really liked the secondary world setting, although with the initial setup being what it was, I could never get the look and feel of a steampunk Wild West out of my head (although I still have no real idea what an “autoduck” is). But this is a world where the Old Gods were overthrown and the New Gods look upon us with kindliness; where same sex relationships and women working outwith the home are mundane; where the anthropomorphic animal messengers of the Old Gods now act as posties; and where Gods (Old and New) have relationships with mortals, relationships that sometimes end up with children.

A delightful cosy story where the closest thing to a Big Bad isn’t a supervillain or Dark Lord, but is just a crooked businessman. I can’t, for the life of me, remember where I saw the book and thought that it sounded like fun, but I’m really glad that I did.