Until Death

"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

Author: Mary Berman
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Published: 05/19/2026
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.54lbs
Size: 8.22h x 5.47w x 0.77d
ISBN: 9780316597173


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 04/01/2026
Booklist 04/01/2026

About the Author

Mary Berman is a Philadelphia-based writer. She earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of Mississippi, where she was a Graduate Excellence Fellow, and she also holds a BA in writing seminars from Johns Hopkins University. Her short works have been published in Cicada, PseudoPod, Fireside Magazine, and elsewhere. Until Death is her debut novel.