Smutty Stuff:
Enthusiastic Consent, Fingering, Gentle, Masturbation, Multiple Orgasms, Oral, and Orgasm Denial
TikTok sensation Morbidly Yours, an opposites-attract romantic dramedy about a shy, demisexual Irish mortician who must marry by his 35th birthday to keep his beloved family business, and the Texan widow escaping her past who moves in next door.
Falling for the wrong person? Bury your feelings.
Painfully shy Callum Flannelly would rather dive into an open grave than take a stranger to dinner. But he can only inherit the family undertaking business under one condition: He must marry before his 35th birthday. Texan animator Lark Thompson moved to Galway, Ireland, to restart her life and career, not be reminded of losing her husband by moving in next to a funeral home.
But when she learns of Callum’s dilemma, Lark’s certain she can help him find The One, even if she’s sworn off love herself. Though as the dating project progresses and Lark spends more time with straight-laced, sarcastic Callum, he starts to crack the ice around her grieving heart. And the more joy that vivacious Lark brings to Callum’s grey existence, the less he can imagine letting her return to Texas.
If they think they can ignore their connection, they’re dead wrong.
Did not realize I was reading something off the Booktok list until I pulled up the description just now. I’ll be honest: I got this book on one of Kobo’s daily deals and ran with it. I love romcoms! And I read enough of the synopsis to go, heh. Really?
I ended up really enjoying this. It isn’t slow slow burn but it was enough to make me practically jump up when they finally fucking acknowledged the more-than-friends thing they had going.
It’s your basic romcom, one of those books that reminds me that side characters in romance novels exist purely to move the main characters forward in their journeys. Not entirely a bad thing, sure, and there was a subplot about overcoming workplace harassment, but somehow time passed in leaps and shuffles every time I blinked. It also had a bit of the ol’ diversity checklist going on, where the author worked hard to make sure that you knew there was Inclusion.
Not to say it’s bad, but sometimes I wonder if I’m over-critical. Rory is introduced as they play with their they/them button. Maeve has an ambiguously-named wife that she pops out with that specifically has the main characters addressing their stance on The Gays. The PoC characters are occasionally pointed out by their ethnicity. So I do wonder, am I watching the author try too hard to have a heartfelt inclusion of others? And then I wonder, am I being too hard on books like this, which take the time to try, but the effort is obvious? Because other books, many books, do not try. They do not describe the characters because the “default” is assumed. So I give the author credit where it’s due.
Anyhow, I did massively enjoy it. The sex scenes were sweet and didn’t try too hard. It felt like quite a big deal when they started no-barriers sex, and an even bigger deal when real intimacy started. I am ignorant as a whole of the culture in Galway, so it felt to me like I was touring the place through the book. The characters acted realistically for the most part, as in it made sense even when they went absolutely off the wall.
I have some excerpts:
