Book Review: Love You to Death by Jenna Levine
Official Synopsis: Lucy McKenzie’s life has always been a disaster. So it should come as no surprise when one day she’s hit by an inconveniently-timed bus—and dies. Unfortunately for the handsome grim reaper who shows up to take her to the afterlife, Lucy is not about to go quietly.
Daniel is tired of his job collecting souls. While working for the Agency beats the heck out of going to Hell, he’s been doing this for literal ages. The drudgery has him yearning for more. Touched by Lucy’s plea for more time on earth, he convinces the Agency to make a deal: Lucy can have six more weeks of life if Daniel can observe her and report back on humanity.
But as Lucy and Daniel navigate the chaos of life and afterlife together, they discover that a second chance at living might be their real chance at love.
Lucy McKenzie knows she is a disaster, everything she tries to do seems to go just wrong enough. When she is leaving a reception for her work, where she forgot to bring the plaque, she is hit by a bus...literally. But when the handsome stranger she met at the reception, who turns out to be reaper, tries to take her soul, she fights back...hard. Unwilling to go with him until after her little sister's wedding, Lucy convinces the agency he works for to let her live six more weeks. In that time Daniel, the reaper, will take notes on what humans are like, passing along his findings to The Agency. As Daniel continues to observe Lucy he starts to feel things for her he definitely shouldn't feel for the person he is meant to move to the afterlife.
Now Lucy is doing her best to make the most of her last few weeks, helping her sister plan her perfect wedding and working on showing Daniel the human parts of life that he has seemingly forgotten. As they continue to fall for each other, breaking rules that Daniel has never considered breaking before, she also learns more about who Daniel was in life, and what led him to the fate he knows. Daniel has his own history that impacts who he is, but after decades of being a reaper, Daniel wonders if there is more that he could be doing with his afterlife. When he starts to see the light that Lucy can bring to his life, he starts to push back more after the sterile walls of The Agency.
Jenna Levine, knows for her vampire series, has a really great way of writing a story that goes into something all humans tend to fear. The plot shows Lucy figuring out how human she really is while showing Daniel how much he would love a second chance to live. It makes the whole process of death a job, overseen by Lucifer and others, but everything is treated like a transaction, which I thought was cool. I also liked that the story follows Lucy as she struggles with having more time but knowing there is an end date to it all, how she changes what she finds important, what she wants to accomplish and overall her outlook on life when she knows what will happen soon.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and how it made light of a serious thing and still managed to bring us a happy ending. I liked how Lucy and Daniel were able to find humanity in different ways and make something new happen for both of them.
I rated this book 3.75 out of 5 stars!
Love You to Death comes out October 13, 2026!
Comments