The Neverloving Dead Haunted Hearts, #6
romance m/m; horror; paranormal
self
10/14/24
Kindle
214
Amazon
Amazon Link: amazon
It all sounds so simple: help Gethin stop a serial killer. Then Gethin will leave him alone and go ‘on’ into death. And Patrick can get on with his mission: to leave limbo in the other direction. Backwards, into life...
Repressed ex-priest Patrick died centuries ago. Now he roams London, feeding on men, building energy for a second chance at life and love. Emotions cost energy, so he avoids them.
Fun-loving Welshman Gethin struggles with anger after his violent murder. The only thing he’s ever committed to, dead or alive, is stopping his killer before he kills again. But he's failing.
Purely to be rid of him, Patrick agrees to help. But as the clock runs down and emotions get messy, will their deal cost more than either of them intend?
Review By Ulysses Dietz
Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team
Amazon Link: amazon
Having read all of Tal Frost’s Hammer Falls books, I knew this would be a very different take on a ghost story/romance. Tal’s work is edgy and disconcerting, and yet at the same time deeply romantic within the paranormal context in which he places his stories. The Neverloving Dead is a very personal mixture of horrific and poignant moments, with an unexpected touch of absurdist comedy.
I loved both of the characters—young men ripped from life unjustly and cast into limbo. That Gethin died three years ago while Patrick died over a century earlier creates an automatic tension of context. Patrick has learned a lot about the world from his non-life in limbo in London—but the context of his death has marked him in ways he can’t really see beyond. One of those is a very low self-esteem. Gethin, a much more modern death, sees the world in a very different (and angrier) way. It’s a brilliant dynamic that drives the entire plot. It’s the sort of meet-cute story you might see in any modern gay romance—except for the fact that it’s also all about violent unjust death.
Gethin and Patrick are tragic figures, who feel very real and human in spite of being ghosts. They misunderstand each other consistently—another classic trope of screwball comedy—and of course don’t communicate effectively because of their personal insecurities.
It’s maddening and hilarious and heartbreaking all at the same time.
Plus, in a very Tal Frost way, the whole narrative is highly charged sexually, for reasons that are essential to the plot. This is also both funny and appalling, as both dead men stumble through their makeshift friendship toward their separate goals, each of them increasingly attached to the other without being able to express it.
I’ve never read anything like it—except for the Hammer Falls books, and compared to those, The Neverloving Dead is positively cozy. I loved it and was touched by it.