YA bestseller Marr (Wicked Lovely), in her first novel for adult readers, serves up a quirky dark fantasy fashioned around the themes of fate, free will—and zombies. When Rebekkah Barrow is summoned home to Claysville for the funeral of her beloved grandmother, Maylene, Rebekkah doesn't know that she's been designated Maylene's successor as the town Graveminder, whose job it is to give the recently deceased food to keep them in the Land of the Dead. Not coincidentally, her sometimes lover, Byron Montgomery, has just succeeded his dad as the Undertaker, who works intimately with the Graveminder. Even as the pair ponder the grave responsibilities that their weird destinies have thrust upon them, they doggedly pursue Daisha, an adolescent who died under suspicious circumstances and who, unburied and untended, is wreaking havoc around town as a rampaging member of the Hungry Dead. Not everything adds up in Marr's story, but the well-drawn characters and their dramatic interactions keep the tale loose and lively. 6-city author tour. (June)
Dark and dreamy . . . Rod Serling would have loved GRAVEMINDER . . . Marr is not tapping into the latest horde of zombie novels, she’s created a new kind of undead creature . . . A creatively creepy gothic tale for grown-ups.” — USA Today
“Melissa Marr has created a fabulous, richly-imagined world in Claysville and its attendant piece of the Underworld.” — Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Compelling, sexy, and riveting, you will not want to miss Graveminder!” — Jeaniene Frost, New York Times bestselling author of the Night Huntress series
“Plan ahead to read this one, because you won’t be able to put it down! Haunting, captivating, brilliant! ” — Library Journal (starred review)
“Marr serves up a quirky dark fantasy fashioned around themes of fate, free will-and zombies…well-drawn characters and their dramatic interactions keep the tale loose and lively.” — Publishers Weekly
“The über-talented Marr takes her mesmerizing storytelling talents into the adult arena. In her atmospheric and eerie tale, readers and protagonists jointly discover the secrets literally buried in this small town as Marr weaves a richly gothic tale filled with curses, responsibility and death. Outstanding!” — RT Book Reviews (top pick)
“A deliciously creepy tale that is as skillfully wrought as it is spellbindingly imagined.” — Kelley Armstrong
“No one builds worlds like Melissa Marr.” — Charlaine Harris
“The emotional dance between Rebekkah and Byron will captivate female readers [and] fantasy-horror fans will demand more.” — Kirkus Reviews
“If anyone can put the goth in Southern Gothic, it’s Melissa Marr...Marr [is] careful to ensure that the book’s wider themes ... matter to us as much as the multiple cases of heebie-jeebies she doles out.” — NPR
“Marr creates sympathetic characters, she takes readers to places both sinister and delightful, and there’s a satisfying end to a wonderfully awful villain...Fans will be looking for a sequel to this cozy horror story as soon as they read the last page.” — Washington Post
A deliciously creepy tale that is as skillfully wrought as it is spellbindingly imagined.
No one builds worlds like Melissa Marr.
Melissa Marr has created a fabulous, richly-imagined world in Claysville and its attendant piece of the Underworld.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Dark and dreamy . . . Rod Serling would have loved GRAVEMINDER . . . Marr is not tapping into the latest horde of zombie novels, she’s created a new kind of undead creature . . . A creatively creepy gothic tale for grown-ups.
The über-talented Marr takes her mesmerizing storytelling talents into the adult arena. In her atmospheric and eerie tale, readers and protagonists jointly discover the secrets literally buried in this small town as Marr weaves a richly gothic tale filled with curses, responsibility and death. Outstanding!
RT Book Reviews (top pick)
Compelling, sexy, and riveting, you will not want to miss Graveminder!
If anyone can put the goth in Southern Gothic, it’s Melissa Marr...Marr [is] careful to ensure that the book’s wider themes ... matter to us as much as the multiple cases of heebie-jeebies she doles out.
Dark and dreamy . . . Rod Serling would have loved GRAVEMINDER . . . Marr is not tapping into the latest horde of zombie novels, she’s created a new kind of undead creature . . . A creatively creepy gothic tale for grown-ups.
Marr creates sympathetic characters, she takes readers to places both sinister and delightful, and there’s a satisfying end to a wonderfully awful villain...Fans will be looking for a sequel to this cozy horror story as soon as they read the last page.
Marr creates sympathetic characters, she takes readers to places both sinister and delightful, and there’s a satisfying end to a wonderfully awful villain...Fans will be looking for a sequel to this cozy horror story as soon as they read the last page.
Melissa Marr has created a fabulous, richly-imagined world in Claysville and its attendant piece of the Underworld.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"The über-talented Marr takes her mesmerizing storytelling talents into the adult arena. In her atmospheric and eerie tale, readers and protagonists jointly discover the secrets literally buried in this small town as Marr weaves a richly gothic tale filled with curses, responsibility and death. Outstanding!"
(top pick) - RT Book Reviews
Wow, a Marr book without a single fey! The best-selling author of the young adult "Wicked Lovely" series brings something entirely different to the table in her adult fiction debut. Residents of Claysville stay in Claysville—not because they don't want to leave, but because they can't. The small town is immediately familiar but leaves an eerie, prickly feeling at the back of your neck. The Town Council knows things the other residents can't imagine. Claysville is safe enough, as long as the dead stay dead. The Undertaker and his Graveminder uphold the centuries-old contract between this world and the next, but the town's Graveminder has been murdered. New Undertaker Byron loves Rebekkah—he always has—but now he has to convince her that she belongs to him and the dead. In the town of Claysville, there are the living, the dead, and those who exist between. VERDICT You need to plan ahead to read this one, because you won't be able to put it down! Haunting, captivating, brilliant!—Jennifer Anderson, Texas A&M Univ., Corpus Christi
