NextBookAfter
Get book recommendations that actually understand why you liked something. Built for readers who know why a book worked.
Join the waitlist

Looking for death-haunted rivals, sharp banter, and hard-won tenderness after Grim Tidings by B.K. Borison? The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen awaits.

Curated by NextBookAfter Editors. This read-alike match weighs tone, themes, pacing, character dynamics, and emotional payoff rather than genre alone. See how recommendations are chosen.

Buy on Amazon

Why It's Your Next Read

  • Same grumpy friction, deepened through anonymous emotional intimacy
  • Shared macabre death work with tender mutual caretaking
  • Familiar dual perspectives balancing banter, yearning, and grief
  • Source’s slow burn building toward cathartic emotional release
  • Stranger fantasy terrain with more third-act danger
The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy Cover

Genre

  • Fantasy Romance

Subgenres

Tags

A lonely marshal and the undertaker he cannot stand unknowingly become tender pen pals in a whimsical world of unruly corpses, deepening their hostility into an achingly vulnerable romance about grief, family, and choosing to live.

Hart and Mercy begin exactly where Darcy and Gabriel do best: professionally opposed, personally prickly, and far too interested in each other for comfort. Their anonymous letters let loneliness and family pressure surface before either can lower their guard face to face, giving every barb a tender counterweight. The death-soaked work stays playful until the romance earns a bruising, hopeful emotional payoff.

Choose this when Grim Tidings left you wanting more banter, death work, and catharsis in one slow burn.

The setting is stranger and the action sharper, but the central pleasure remains two defensive people discovering care beneath mutual irritation.

Come for the corpse jokes; stay for the letters that break open two lonely hearts.

Buy on Amazon

What Readers Are Saying

"It’s a enemies to lovers story and I loved their banter." — Helen Hoang, Goodreads

What Readers Are Saying

"But on top of a story structure I love, I also enjoyed the bizarre dark-yet-whimsical world and the cozy family vibes" — Mara, Goodreads

What Readers Are Saying

"This stupid book caused a salty discharge to come out of my eyes, what is this?!" — Kristina, Goodreads

Awards & Recognition

Two more ways to follow the feeling

Go Deeper—or Sideways

Cover of Battle Royal by Lucy Parker

Under the Radar

Battle Royal

by Lucy Parker

Rivalry Baked With Real Ache

Rival London bakers Sylvie Fairchild and Dominic De Vere are forced onto the same judging panel just as they begin competing for the commission of a lifetime. Their clashing styles and barbed chemistry gradually reveal two tender people carrying old grief, turning professional warfare into a warm, hard-won romance.

  • Source’s occupational rivalry translated into royal baking
  • Equally barbed slow-burn chemistry between guarded overachievers
  • Familiar rom-com wit layered over grief and family wounds
  • Contemporary coziness without supernatural whimsy or death work
Buy this book
Cover of This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Wildcard Pick

This Is How You Lose the Time War

by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Enemies Across Every Timeline

Two elite agents serving rival futures begin hiding taunting letters for each other across time, only to discover that their most dangerous act of treason may be falling in love. Their private contest becomes an intimate, reality-spanning bid to choose each other over the systems that made them enemies.

A lyrical time-travel spy war replaces cozy paranormal comedy, while preserving rival professionals’ banter, loneliness, and hard-won devotion.

  • Same adversarial professionals trading barbs through secret correspondence
  • Familiar alternating voices turning loneliness into dangerous devotion
  • Shared one-upmanship sharpened into more lyrical romantic intensity
  • Cosmic violence instead of cozy paranormal comfort
Buy this book

What to read after Grim Tidings

Readers searching for adult books like or similar to Grim Tidings by B.K. Borison usually value these qualities in Grim Tidings by B.K. Borison: the slow-burn, grumpy-versus-grumpy relationship dynamic, the emotional payoff beneath the rom-com surface, and the accessible dual-POV voice and tonal agility.

If your search is specifically for books similar to Grim Tidings for adults, this match keeps the grown-up stakes, voice, and reader payoff central rather than drifting into younger or purely genre-adjacent suggestions.

If you like Grim Tidings and want to know what to read next, start with The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy. It is the closest NextBookAfter match for readers who want a book like Grim Tidings with the same core appeal.

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy is a similar next read for fans of Grim Tidings by B.K. Borison. It shares parts of that appeal, while the comparison above identifies both what it preserves and where it departs. It moves through fantasy romance.

Books like or similar to Grim Tidings: quick answers

What should I read after Grim Tidings by B.K. Borison?
The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy repeats the death-work rivalry and aching slow burn; Battle Royal carries the barbed professional competition into a warm baking romance; This Is How You Lose the Time War transforms dual-voice enemies-to-lovers yearning into lyrical science fiction.
If I like Grim Tidings, what should I read next?
Read The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy next. The key point of comparison is this: Same grumpy friction, deepened through anonymous emotional intimacy. The setting is stranger and the action sharper, but the central pleasure remains two defensive people discovering care beneath mutual irritation.
What is a book like Grim Tidings for adults?
The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy is the closest adult readalike here for readers drawn to what Grim Tidings does best: the slow-burn, grumpy-versus-grumpy relationship dynamic. The key point of comparison is this: Same grumpy friction, deepened through anonymous emotional intimacy. The setting is stranger and the action sharper, but the central pleasure remains two defensive people discovering care beneath mutual irritation.
What are good books similar to Grim Tidings by B.K. Borison for adults?
The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy matches what readers value in Grim Tidings: the slow-burn, grumpy-versus-grumpy relationship dynamic. The key point of comparison is this: Same grumpy friction, deepened through anonymous emotional intimacy. The setting is stranger and the action sharper, but the central pleasure remains two defensive people discovering care beneath mutual irritation.
Is The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy similar to Grim Tidings by B.K. Borison?
Yes. The key point of comparison is this: Same grumpy friction, deepened through anonymous emotional intimacy. The setting is stranger and the action sharper, but the central pleasure remains two defensive people discovering care beneath mutual irritation.
Why recommend The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy for fans of Grim Tidings by B.K. Borison?
Recommend The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy. The key point of comparison is this: Same grumpy friction, deepened through anonymous emotional intimacy. The setting is stranger and the action sharper, but the central pleasure remains two defensive people discovering care beneath mutual irritation.
How many books like Grim Tidings are on this page?
This page lists 3 curated recommendations for readers looking for what to read after Grim Tidings by B.K. Borison.

Keep us in your search

Make NextBookAfter a preferred source

Add us to make our reading guides more likely to appear when you search on Google.

NextBookAfter participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. The site earns from qualifying purchases made through affiliate links.