Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After
By Steve Hockensmith
Paperbook | Kindle
Quirk Books
Release date: March 22, 2011

Prior to 2009, who would have thought that zombies invading the world of Jane Austen’s literary classic Pride and Prejudice would be the break-out hit of the fiction bestseller lists, spawning countless similar monsters-meet-classic novel mash-ups? But that’s just what the Quirk Classics tale Pride and Prejudice and Zombies did, so it’s no wonder that the publisher decided to delve back into this twisted version of early 19th century England to churn out an original prequel, PPZ: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, as well as a sequel, the newly released Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After by Steve Hockensmith.

The trilogy centers around Miss Elizabeth Bennett, one of five sisters, each of whom has been trained in martial arts and are experts at dispatching “dreadfuls,” the undead creatures who crave the taste of the living. In the prequel, we learn how the Bennett sisters became the deadly protectors of England that they are; in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Elizabeth must balance her role as a proper young lady in society and her mother’s wish for her to find a suitable husband, with her very unlady-like duty to protect her family and countrymen from the hordes of attacking zombies. In the end, Elizabeth snags the most eligible of all bachelors, the well-to-do Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, and the couple live happily ever after… right?