Dearly, Departed (Dearly #1) by Lia Habel

Title: Dearly, Departed
Author: Lia Habel
Series: Book One in the Dearly Series
Published By: Random House Publishing (Oct. 18, 2011)
Source: E galley ARC Copy
Genre: YA Dystopian/Parnormal
My Rating: 4 Stars

Goodreads Description:
Love can never die.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. But as is the case with the rest of his special undead unit, luck and modern science have enabled Bram to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.
In Dearly, Departed, romance meets walking-dead thriller, spawning a madly imaginative novel of rip-roaring adventure, spine-tingling suspense, and macabre comedy that forever redefines the concept of undying love.

My Review:Okay, so I am going to start off by admitting that this wasn't anything at all, like I thought it was going to be. For some inexplicable reason, I had no idea this book would be about zombies. How I missed that, I am not sure but I did.
At any rate, I was pretty excited to read this book, which looks like it is the first in a new series.
What first caught my eye about this book was the cover, it is pretty amazing. I was pretty sure with a cover like this, it would have to have a steampunk theme to it and to my delight it did. It also had that old Victorian feel to it even though this book is set in the future.
Already, it combined to of my favorite things to read about so adding that paranormal element to it (with zombies) was an even bigger bonus.

And while this book was not what I was expecting, it was definitely a great read.
It alternated between 5 character's POVs, which surprising wasn't distracting at all and was beautifully done. And while I liked some POV's way better than others, it was still nice to see all the POVs of the story and you could still tell who the main characters of the story were (Nora and Bram).
Ah, Bram and Nora. Their relationship and love, well definitely like no other. In fact this whole book was like no other that I have read.
Habel managed to create a very real feel to a world full of chaos pretending to be order and people pretending to still be alive that most definitely aren't.
And while Nora and Bram's relationship was far from the norm, I still liked seeing it develop. And while it did weird me out a little bit, I mean come on, he is DEAD! It was still a sweet romance nonetheless and I was rooting for them the whole way.
It will be very interesting indeed to see where Habel takes the story from here.
I loved all the twists and turns and just the sheer uniqueness of it.
Habel is a very talented writer and I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will definitely be picking up the next installment when it is released.