The Black Bird of Chernobyl

by Ann McMan

Overview

Two-time Lambda Literary Award-winning author Ann McMan takes readers inside the inner workings of the funeral home business as only she can in this remarkable and wholly unforgettable dark romantic comedy that proves life is for the living.

Everything about Lilah Stohler is dark: her clothes, mood, and outlook on life and death. That last part is important because Lilah’s father has just retired and left her in charge of the family funeral home. But Abel Stohler knows his daughter’s comfort level rests “downstairs,” so he hires one Sparkle Lee Sink, to help Lilah manage the living part of the business of death.

Sparkle is everything that Lilah isn’t—an empathetic marketing whiz who is a true people person.

Lilah isn’t happy about this new arrangement. Still, when business starts booming because of Sparkle’s bright personality, delicious baked goods, and knack for funereal commerce, Lilah thinks things might work out. But joy is fleeting in the funeral home business, and Lilah’s world is turned upside down when an unwitting Instagram post featuring one of her moods goes viral—and now, sightings of “The Black Bird of Chernobyl” have become an obsession across the Instaverse.

Lilah knows that Sparkle needs to go, but before she can give her the send-off she deserves, Lilah must first find a way to deal with the inconvenient attraction she’s developed for the nemesis whose unconventional methods are single-handedly transforming the death trade—and quite possibly the Black Bird, herself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781612942889
Publisher:	Bywater Books MI
Publication date:	07/09/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	300
File size:	811 KB

About the Author

ANN McMAN is the author of thirteen novels and two short story collections. She is a two-time Lambda Literary Award recipient, a six-time Independent Publisher (IPPY) medalist, a Foreword Reviews INDIES medalist, and a laureate of the Alice B. Foundation for her outstanding body of work. She splits her time between Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Grand Isle, Vermont.

Editorial Reviews

04/22/2024

Lambda Award winner McMan follows up 2020’s The Big Tow with a goofy romance for goth mortician Lilah, the sister of book one’s heroine, Frankie Stohler. Thirty-something and resolutely single, Lilah has spent her whole life in mortuary science and is about to be rewarded with control of her family’s funeral parlor. But dear old Dad isn’t retiring without one more power move: hiring Sparkle Lee Sink as “community outreach liaison.” Lilah is outraged and intrigued at once, a snarl of emotion that tangles further when Sparkle’s marketing success leads to Lilah’s reluctant elevation to Instagram stardom. Buyout offers and a joint junket to a Vegas convention up the ante as the two enemies pratfall their way toward becoming lovers. McMan relies on relentless one-liners to cover for spotty characterization and plotting, but she’s not entirely successful in encouraging the suspension of disbelief. It makes no sense, for example, that Lilah has spent her life in funeral homes yet refuses to interact with grieving families and resents the idea that anyone would think it a part of the job. Nor is the central love story likely to set readers’ hearts aflutter; it’s primarily a comedic exercise. Fans of McMan’s particular brand of quirky, pop-culture infused humor may find something to enjoy, but newcomers will be left scratching their heads. (July)

Publishers Weekly

At times raunchy and exuberant, The Black Bird of Chernobyl is a playful romance novel that vivifies those who tend to the dead as their life’s work.” —Jeana Jorgensen, Foreword Reviews

From the Publisher