Reviewed by Stephen K
TITLE: Drop Dead Sexy
AUTHOR: Kiernan Kelly
PUBLISHER: Changeling Press LLC
LENGTH: 122 Pages
RELEASE DATE: October 23rd 2020
BLURB:
The dead have arisen, and all they want is their old lives back. Can love eternal exist for those who are dead but not gone? It takes a brave zombie to find out.
As Serious as the Grave: Tyler was only dead for a couple of hours before he reanimated, and he’s still handsome and drop dead sexy. What makes his unnatural life worth living? Daniel, a big hunk who just might be the special person Tyler’s spent his life looking for. Will his chance for a lifetime of love with Daniel be taken away before they even get started?
Lights, Camera, Zombies! Jericho’s never been one to shy away from the facts of life… and death… and re-life. Not everyone gets the memo that Zombies are humans with rights, however. When his life is threatened on the set of a new movie, Jericho and his lover, Dex, must decide which is more important, their Zombie pride or their lives.
Publisher’s Note: Drop Dead Sexy (Duet) contains the previously published novellas Serious As the Grave and Lights, Camera, Zombie by Kiernan Kelly
REVIEW:
Drop Dead Sexy is a triptych. Three tales from beyond the grave. OK… So the undead prefer the terms “living challenged” or “previously deceased.” Who knew? Best learn the terminology or face the chance of being outed as a “breather” or a “necrophobe” by one of those re-woke advocates.
Serious as the Grave is the first tale. That of Tyler and his best (presumably straight) friend Daniel. Daniel and Taylor are both accountants in this short gay-for-you tale. Turns out that Daniel is more open-minded than his friend Tyler ever thought he was. If only hate mongers like Samuel Chalmers weren’t agitating for re-internment of all zombies… You’d think pastors would be more tolerant of the “born again.”
Lights, Camera, Zombies! Is the second tale. A bit grimmer than the first in that its events mirror too closely today’s problems of race and social injustice. Here society is still adjusting. Bigots have passed laws making the re-animated second class citizens, with laws against “passing” and fraternizing with the “previously dead.” Yet, never say die. The boys (and love) will find a way.
The third tale is Destination Dead, a tale of a resort established for the undead to get a little vacation time away from the breather infested world. The grand opening is this weekend if owners Cal and Holden can keep their hands off each other long enough to get the place open… and if the necrophobic Xavier Whittaker, owner of the island’s exclusive breather resort fails to get them closed down.
I’m a big fan of tales that allow you to walk a mile in the other guy’s moccasins. (Or in this case shamble) but by the end I did detect a bit of “decomp shaming” going on. In all of these stories the recently deceased were re-animated before any serious decomp could take place. But then fiction has generally featured the “pretty people.” These tales are for the most part light hearted but there is an under-current of discrimination that gives them a satirical edge.
Though the book is humorous on many levels, each of the tales shows that the after-life isn’t all that much easier than what comes before it. But most of the problems seem to arise from man’s intolerance for man. I’m not advocating that you rush out and buy this book, I’m just saying, I’d not be caught dead without it.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:Amazon