Steven Hockensmith
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Book #2

Review Brought to you by OBS staff member Angie

PP&Z: Dreadfully Ever After is the sequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It takes place 4 years after the end of the previous novel. Elizabeth and Jane Bennet have married and Kitty and Mary remain at home. Mrs. Bennet has declared that this is perfectly fine with her as her girls must care for her in her old age.  Elizabeth has married her Sweetheart, Fitzwilliam Darcy and Jane has married Charles Bingly and now has just given birth to her 3rd child.

Now that Elizabeth is a married woman, she has been forced to give up her warrior ways, but she and Darcy (what she calls her husband) take strolls alone and when no one is watching he loves to fight Zed dash dash dash dash dashes with her.  He loves that his wife comes alive when she is slaughtering the Dreadfuls with him, but he notices that she has become quite melancholy most of the time and he’s worried about her. On a walk home from visiting Jane and the new baby, Lizzy confesses that she is relieved that they don’t have children yet and she’s worried about what Darcy will think of her. It is while he is distracted by this conversation that he lets his guard down and is bitten in the throat by a child of a house worker that has become an unmentionable.

Lizzy realizes that the only hope she has to save her husband from certain permanent death is to rely his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who claims to have a cure. Lady Catherine has made no secret of her contempt of Elizabeth, therefore she requires Elizabeth to make a choice: she can either have her husband restored to health or she can keep her reputation intact.  If she does as lady Catherine asks, she will forever destroy her reputation in society and likely lose her marriage. If she doesn’t, she will be forced to decapitate her beloved. How far will Elizabeth go to save the man she loves? And what will her sisters do to help her?

Mr. Hockensmith did not disappoint!! This book has the same wit and charm as Dawn of the Dreadfuls. It is an original work rather than a true mash-up and he nailed the language and attitude of the era perfectly. He’s given a love interest to my favorite Bennet girl, Kitty, and he brought back a surprise guest that sewed up some loose ends quite nicely. I loved this book and enjoyed every chapter.  The ending was somewhat of a surprise to me. It didn’t conclude like I thought it would, but it gave a nice “contentedly ever after” feeling.  I don’t know if there is enough of the Bennet’s story left for an additional  book, but I’d like to know what happens 10 years later.

I would say that this is a MUST READ for any Pride and Prejudice and Zombies fan.