“This is a book for a really, really impressively strange mind, and I mean that as the most complimentary possible thing I could say about it. I cannot stop reading it, and I cannot read too much of it at the same time.”
- Linda Holmes, NPR, Pop-Culture Happy Hour
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Haley Hill, Audible Editor
From Guillermo del Toro’s film adaptation of Frankenstein to Ryan Murphy’s Netflix reimagining of Ed Gein’s killing spree, romantic affairs with reanimated corpses seem to be all the rage among storytellers these days. Told through the lens of a venture capital superstar whose company is funding a dating app that encourages lonely, living singles to embrace the dead as a reasonable alternative to an otherwise grim dating pool, this debut lives at the intersection of corporate satire (which was very trendy in 2025) and an absurdist modern dating story (the most cathartic micro-genre for any listeners in their single era). After digging in to an advanced reader’s copy, I have no doubt that the matter-of-fact, macabre humor at the heart of this novel will come to life in audio.
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In a similar vein, Sarah G. Pierce’s debut starts in a weird place, then gets so much weirder. What if there were a dating app that paired curious users with embalmed cadavers? What if said dating app proved unbelievably popular? And what if complications concerning venture capital funding produced a truly bizarre love triangle? Intrigue! Corpses! Quarterly profits!
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Tom Williamson is the numbers guy at a private equity firm. While dealing with the end of his engagement, he learns that his company is going to fund Liv, a dating app that matches people with dead bodies. When the app takes off, Tom finds himself at odds with Liv’s idealistic founder while simultaneously drawn in by Mara Reed, who is very close to Tom’s new nemesis. Pierce makes her debut with this very unique and hilarious horror rom-com that bends genre norms in every direction. Each chapter, titled with the name of a character, changes focus and perspective as the need for corpses increases with Liv’s success. With the rhythm of a sitcom, this book also has a similar feel to Mira Grant’s Newsflesh trilogy. Pierce manages to deliver genuine horror while also exploring questions about intimacy and relationships even as Liv increasingly takes over its users’ lives. Readers who enjoyed Warm Bodies (2010), by Isaac Marion, and novels like Such Sharp Teeth (2022), by Rachel Harrison, will find a lot to enjoy here.
