Bless Your Heart is book 1 in a series that’s full of heart, the dead, the undead, and the unforgettable Evans women—proprietors of the only funeral parlor in their Southeast Texas town who serve the community and take care of some unwelcome visitors as only they can.
Tricia Ford: Would you say that Bless Your Heart is not for the faint of heart? How scary is it? Would you suggest that people “listen with the lights on”?
Lindy Ryan: Bless Your Heart is full of heart—but the heart is a beating, bloody thing, after all. Whether something is “scary” or not is certainly a matter of taste, but if we were to put the book on a restaurant horror menu, I’d like to think it’d come with two spice chilis: enough to sink your teeth into with a little kick for most readers, but not enough to set your mouth aflame.
Why do you think horror can be so much fun?
Fear is personal, and horror gives us a chance to confront our fears, to fight back against them, and (usually) to win. I like to say that horror is a genre of hope, because more important even than conquering our fears is the reminder that they don’t control us. Even in the bleakest, darkest, most horrifying of moments, horror gives us the opportunity to look those scary things dead in the eye and be alive. No matter the horrors we face, we’re still here—still running and screaming, maybe, but here. That’s enough to get the blood pumping, and that’s fun to me.
The setting and premise of this story immediately caught my attention. What inspired you to set the story in Texas in the 1990s, and at a female, family-run funeral home?
I grew up in a small Southeast Texas town, surrounded by a family of sassy Southern women who didn’t suffer fools gladly. My grandmother was the kind of gal who could turn you to ice with one look, and my great-grandmother could charm the scales straight off a rattlesnake. When I started writing Bless Your Heart it was in homage to their memory, and for my mother, who raised me to be just like the Evans women. Life is hard and full of hurt, and even when you’re haunted—whether by the restless dead or anything else—I want readers to remember the strength of female friendships, family or otherwise, and that there’s always someone there to fight back against the dark with you, be it with the sweetness of butterscotch or the stabby end of a mortuary trocar.
You’re quite immersed in the horror community. Who are some of your favorite writers, past and present, that we should all be listening to?
As someone who grew up with her nose stuffed in the pages of some of horror’s greatest (Mary Shelley, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, Anne Rice, Stephen King) my love of spooky books runs deep. Today, I believe we are living in the era of women in horror, and there is no shortage of incredible women writing incredible horror today. Some of my faves: Gwendolyn Kiste, Rachel Harrison, Chandler Baker, Christina Henry, T. Kingfisher, Cynthia Pelayo, Catriona Ward, Agustina Bazterrica, Zoje Stage, Darcy Coates—the list goes on. And, of course, more incredible writers: Josh Malerman, Nat Cassidy, Grady Hendrix, Clay McLeod Chapman, and Stephen Graham Jones.
Are vampires real?
…pass? *wipes fangs*
Vampires are some of the oldest undead lore in recorded history, with many sources citing at least a thousand years of vampiric legends. Some of the oldest—long before Sheridan Le Fanu gave us Carmilla and Bram Stoker introduced us to Dracula—involve strigoi, like those readers will meet in Bless Your Heart. Since then, vampires have come a long way, and while they may or may not be “real,” they certainly are a very real part of our cultural memory. (But they might be real.)
What are you working on now?
I’ve just completed the sequel to Bless Your Heart, which will be announced soon, as well as a forthcoming standalone feminist horror-thriller slasher.
