Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill from Breaking the Spine, and specifically spotlights upcoming novels we can't wait to read. As always, there are some amazing upcoming books, but this week I'm particularly excited for...
Author: Lia Habel
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Published: October 18, 2011
Genre: YA, Steampunk, PNR
Pages: 544
Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead—or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie?
The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune, and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses.
But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead—and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead.
Ummmm...yes. Steampunk? Zombies? Romance? Sold on all accounts! Dearly, Departed is a blend of a whole mess of my favourite things, plus it sounds so bloody original that I'd be sold on that alone. There's something about the blend of past and future in steampunk that totally speaks to me, and I haven't seen enough such books in the YA market lately. It doesn't hurt that that's one gorgeous cover, too. I'm such a cover slut. I'd apologise, but it would be entirely insincere. Anyway, despite the doozy of a page count, it sounds fabulous! What do you think, and what are you waiting on this week?
