The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy

The Gods and Their Paperwork

Megan Bannen’s debut fantasy novel is set in a world where gods are real and active presences, where demi-gods serve as intermediaries, and where the dead must be processed through an elaborate mythological bureaucracy before reaching whatever comes next. Hart and Mercy are undertakers — professionals who prepare the dead for their journey and navigate the divine administrative systems that govern it.

They also hate each other. Professionally and personally. They compete for contracts, they undermine each other’s bids, they engage in the specific kind of rivalry that forms between people who are too similar to tolerate each other at close quarters.

They have also been writing to each other for months. As anonymous pen pals — a service their world provides for connection — they have developed a friendship that is tipping into something warmer. Neither knows who the other is.

The Premise and Its Pleasures

The you’ve-got-mail premise — rivals who are anonymous correspondents — is not new, but Bannen executes it with uncommon wit. The comedy of Hart and Mercy’s in-person interactions is the comedy of people who know exactly what to say to irritate each other most efficiently; the warmth of their letter exchanges is the warmth of people who reveal themselves more honestly to strangers than to rivals. The contrast between the two registers is the novel’s engine.

What makes the premise work beyond the basic appeal is the mythological setting, which gives it specificity beyond the usual office romance context. The divine bureaucracy that Hart and Mercy must navigate as undertakers has its own comedic possibilities — the specific forms, the divine intermediaries, the theological implications of paperwork — and Bannen uses them with evident enjoyment.

The World-building

The fantasy world is constructed with the specificity that good fantasy romance requires: enough detail to feel real and navigable, not so much detail that it overwhelms the romantic premise. The gods are present and active in ways that affect daily life; the demi-gods who serve as intermediaries have their own politics and ambitions; the specific rules of the afterlife bureaucracy matter for the plot without ever taking over from the central relationship.

Bannen has a gift for comic world-building — for establishing rules that are simultaneously internally consistent and funny — and the mythological setting gives her full scope for this gift.

Hart and Mercy as Characters

Hart is formal, precise, and defensive in ways that explain much of his irritability with Mercy. Mercy is warm, direct, and competitive in ways that explain much of her irritability with Hart. Both characters are more fully rendered than the enemies-to-lovers trope strictly requires, which is why the romance — when it develops — feels earned rather than mechanical.

The letter sections, where both characters speak more freely, illuminate them in ways that the in-person dynamic cannot. Reading both versions simultaneously gives the novel a dramatic irony that the reader can enjoy even when the characters can’t.

A Romance That Commits

The ending of The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy commits to its romantic premise rather than retreating into ambiguity or setting up a sequel with unresolved tensions. This is the right choice for this kind of novel — the reader invests in the romantic resolution, and Bannen delivers it with appropriate satisfaction.

Our rating: 4.2/5 — A delightful debut fantasy romance. The dual-identity premise is executed with genuine wit, the world-building is inventive, and Hart and Mercy are worth the journey.