
Until Death
A Novel
Mary Berman(Author)
Little Brown and Company (Publisher)
Published on 19. May 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-0-316-59717-3 (ISBN)
Description
"Say Yes to the Dress meets Rosemary's Baby" (Margie Sarsfield) in this fresh, darkly funny horror novel in which a woman finally agrees to marry the man of her mother’s dreams. . . only to discover that wedding planning will eat you alive.
If Ophelia Cohen learned one thing from her parents, it’s that getting married is a bad idea. But if she’s learning anything from her widowed mother’s dementia, it’s that dying alone is worse. So when she meets Luke—the man of her mother’s dreams—marriage suddenly doesn’t seem so crazy.
But none of Ophelia’s obsessive scrolling on wedding forums can prepare her for the nightmare of planning her own. Why is her mother-in-law going crazy over every detail? Why is Luke’s family so eager to host the wedding in their vineyard’s ancient chapel? And what exactly will Ophelia have to sacrifice if she and her mother both hope to survive her special day?
Shot through with wicked humor, pitch-black horror, and unexpected romance, Until Death is a deliciously dark and funny send-up of the wedding industrial complex—and a mother-daughter story unlike any you’ve read before.
"Recognizes the Gothic horror inherent to planning a wedding and creates from it a painfully incisive and genuinely haunting fever dream.” —Kay Chronister, author of The Bog Wife
“Completely unique, deeply unnerving, and deviously funny.” —Samantha Allen, author of Patricia Wants to Cuddle
“Grabbed me like a creeping vine and wouldn't let go." —Kerry Cullen, author of House of Beth
“Glistens with humor and horror. An electrifying and affecting debut.” —Samantha Hunt, author of The Seas
If Ophelia Cohen learned one thing from her parents, it’s that getting married is a bad idea. But if she’s learning anything from her widowed mother’s dementia, it’s that dying alone is worse. So when she meets Luke—the man of her mother’s dreams—marriage suddenly doesn’t seem so crazy.
But none of Ophelia’s obsessive scrolling on wedding forums can prepare her for the nightmare of planning her own. Why is her mother-in-law going crazy over every detail? Why is Luke’s family so eager to host the wedding in their vineyard’s ancient chapel? And what exactly will Ophelia have to sacrifice if she and her mother both hope to survive her special day?
Shot through with wicked humor, pitch-black horror, and unexpected romance, Until Death is a deliciously dark and funny send-up of the wedding industrial complex—and a mother-daughter story unlike any you’ve read before.
"Recognizes the Gothic horror inherent to planning a wedding and creates from it a painfully incisive and genuinely haunting fever dream.” —Kay Chronister, author of The Bog Wife
“Completely unique, deeply unnerving, and deviously funny.” —Samantha Allen, author of Patricia Wants to Cuddle
“Grabbed me like a creeping vine and wouldn't let go." —Kerry Cullen, author of House of Beth
“Glistens with humor and horror. An electrifying and affecting debut.” —Samantha Hunt, author of The Seas
More details
Language
English
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 206 mm
Width: 137 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
252 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-316-59717-3 (9780316597173)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Person
Mary Berman is a Philadelphia-based author. She earned her MFA in fiction from the University of Mississippi, and her stories have been published in Cicada, the horror podcast PseudoPod, the Hugo-nominated Diabolical Plots, and elsewhere. She is a Pitch Wars alum and a winner of the Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Scholarship for female horror writers, and she has attended the Bread Loaf and Viable Paradise workshops. Exploring the horrors of daughterhood and the wedding industrial complex, Until Death is her debut novel.