The God of Endings is a unique vampire tale, switching timelines between the book's current time, 1984, and Colette's past. This book felt a little long, and yet I wish it had been expanded into multiple parts!

Changed into a vampire by her step-grandfather and cast adrift upon the world, Anna falls in love and loses everything many times. Now a preschool teacher to the children of the wealthy, Collette becomes entangled in the troubled life of one of her students.

Why do I keep striking out with vampire books? I've read a variety of takes on vampires, so I don't think it's not any particular trope that's throwing me off. Maybe I just can't take them and their existential angst seriously enough. And Anna/Anya/Collette's got plenty of that.

We start off with a bang, with a scene Anna and her brother being forced to consume the ashes of their father in a misguided cure for their tuberculosis (which is a thing that really happened in 1830s New England!). This sequence, as well some others such as Anna's interlude with Paul and the children's visit to the graveyard, are compelling little vignettes enlivened by lovely writing. The author has a knack for painting vivid scenes, which is doubly enjoyable since Anna is an accomplished artist.

However, the book is overlong for the amount of plot its got, and out of the many characters Anna runs into only a couple ever really make an impression. I also found myself utterly bored and somewhat uncomfortable with the preschool storyline - Collette's relationship with Leo and Katherine is dark and tangled, but the way she becomes consumed in their drama was unintentionally disturbing for me, and so the ending was anything but cathartic. I also found myself frustrated by how much the author glossed over without explanation - how Collette reunited with her grandfather and came back to New England, for example, and the puzzle of her increased hunger throughout the whole book.

“How presumptuous is the gift of life? What arrogance is implicit in the act of love that calls another into existence? This world, my love, I give it to you. All of it. You’re welcome, and I’m sorry.”

Look, I’ll be honest- I saw “vampires” and a pretty cover, and hit the NetGalley request button. I didn’t have much more information than that, and this book was a complete surprise.

GOD OF ENDINGS is beautifully written, has a great cast of characters, and poses some really gratifying questions about life and why it is (or isn’t) worth it. Holland is also very good at creating VIBES- especially unsettling suspense. There were a few moments where I had to put the book down and message someone who had finished the book to reassure me that I was going to survive reading it.

“‘Children do deserve perfect love, but it isn’t because they’re perfect, which means it has to be some other word besides deserve; but I don’t know what the word is. But then it’s true for adults too; after all, we’re just the warped remains of imperfectly loved children. None of us gets the perfect love we ought, but maybe that’s what life is for, to give us time to collect it in bits and pieces, a little here, a little there. Maybe we’re supposed to put it together ourselves slowly.’”

I have a few minor maybe-quibbles around the folklore/mythology included in this book, and feeling a bit like there were a few related loose ends. But- I’m calling them maybe-quibbles because I also think this may have been an intentional choice by the author- humans create folklore to help explain life’s mysteries- doesn’t mean it solves them.

An elegant, leisurely paced vampiric epic, the easiest way to summarize The God of Endings, is that it is a thoughtful mix of A Dowry of Blood (first-person narrative featuring a female vampire), and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (an undying protagonist who lives across centuries and observes the evolution of humanity). Even though at times I question whether its drawn-out length is truly necessary (I went in expecting this to be more of a horror novel, but in retrospect it definitely leans more towards historical fiction in style), and I'm much more engaged in the contemporary narrative comparing the historical ones (where the material is a little bit 'been there, done that'), yet as a whole I really enjoy Jacqueline Holland's emotive writing style, and a very mature, thoughtful observation around beginnings and endings.

I picked this one up a couple of times and am glad I waited until the time was right to complete it - stunning. I loved our main character's back story and all the winding roads she had been taken on that led her to teaching young children.

What a creative debut! It was a bit reminiscent of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (another favorite) in that it jumped between different time periods of an immortal being's life, but I love the fact that this time it had VAMPIRES. It's not everyone's cup of tea. It gets a bit morose at times. But it is still an interesting journey into a unique new author's world. 4 stars!

As I am writing this and recalling the writing in this novel, I cannot help but remember how dry it was. The book did not leave me with much of an impression. Oddly, I felt like I was reading a textbook. I really wanted to enjoy reading this book, but ended up not finishing it (DNFed). I will try to pick it back up at a later date when I am in the mood to read about how a woman has lived with immortality.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Flatiron Books, and the author for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

“How curious it is that in nature, the most vibrant colors are those that precede death. The delicate pinks and blues of spring are wan in comparison to the dramatic crimson of the hawthorn berries or the bloody gashes of the buckthorn leaves in late November. Stars blaze pale in their infancy, but in old age they melt and simmer in reds and oranges just as the oaks and maples do. Youth, it seems, is a state of diffuse abundance, while death’s approach concentrates.“

Read if you like:
📖 Historical Ficton
🧛‍♀️ Fantasy
🍁 Fall Vibes
😬 Tense Reads

Anna grew up surrounded by death. In 1834, her father was the village gravestone carver. As plague descends upon them, their world is shaken, neighbor turns on neighbor, the dead are exhumed and made sure they cannot come back and curse the living with the plague. Anna is saved by her grandfather and gifted, or maybe cursed, with eternal life. Now, 150 years later, a gifted artist, Anna (as Collette) runs a school for gifted children. Everything is going well until a special boy from a troubled home joins the school and Collette must decide how best to help him.

This book is a fantastic debut from Jaqueline Holland and perfect for the beginning of spooky season. The prose is beautiful, I found myself rereading passages because they were so wonderfully crafted. The storyline switches between past and present and at times this made the plot lag a bit, but I did love all the historical details. The book explores what makes life precious; it’s brevity or the connections we make to each other.

this books has the most beautiful prose ever!!!! also, i loved the intriguing take on vampires in this one, it was quite fresh and invigorating.

The God of Endings is not like most vampire stories I've read, so it took me a little while to become invested in the story.

Collette (Anna) has lived as a vampire for over a century. She has found a place for herself as a teacher and runs a small school out of her home in upstate New York. She manages to keep her hunger in check by feeding from a small horde of cats she keeps in her attic and the neighbor's cows if need be. Though lately her hunger is growing and she feels a change is coming. Soon she begins blacking out and not remembering what happened while she was out.

Overall I really enjoyed this story. Jacqueline Holland is a gorgeous writer and I felt transported to the small life Collette has made for herself. The story is told in two timelines, showing Collette's life before she was turned (early 1800s) and all the way up though the start of the second World War. I enjoyed both timelines, but enjoyed spending time in Collette's past more than in the present day. My heart broke for Collette as she kept finding families and then having to start over again for one reason or another.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who doesn't mind a slow burn story with beautiful writing. I saw another review comparing this to Matilda if Miss Honey was a sad vampire and I really think that sums it up. I'd also recommend the audiobook if you're having trouble with the physical copy - I listened to the second half via audiobook and it was really lovely.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron for a review copy.

The God of Endings by Jacqueline Holland

ARC provided by Flatiron Books

It took me a while to get into this book. I found the writing quite good and the settings vivid. A somewhat nontraditional vampire novel, this one follows a woman’s journey through immortality. The main story is about her present (1980s-era) existence where she runs a small preschool in New York state, peppered with flashbacks that gradually explain her life leading up to that time. There is a lot of lengthy and only loosely connected exposition in the beginning, but eventually Holland got me hooked with a masterful injection of creeping dread in the 1980s preschool plotline, and the pathos of the character’s past tragedies. I found it interesting that the author kept the traditional mechanics of vampire birth and blood drinking (sans aversion to daylight), but in a kind of rogue move, completely precluded vampire sexuality by making her vampires physically sexless (they don’t have genitals or nipples). It definitely shifted the focus of the narrative and the overall tone away from those typical of traditional/popular vampire fiction. Overall, I found the book a solid debut novel, with some promising strengths and forgivable weaknesses. I’d love to read some horror-adjacent stories by this author.

This is a non-typical vampire novel, better written than most, and with a reluctant female vampire as our hero. She's got some generational trauma, too.

This book was beautifully written but unfortunately the actual storyline was just okay to me. I ended up not being able to finish this book.

This story is told in first person by Anna/Collette beginning in dual timelines of 1830s and 1984. The latter follows Collette as a French woman who runs an art pre-school in upstate New York and goes back through her life from when she was a child in 1830s New York, her experiences growing up with her family, her death and subsequent immortal life thereafter including important relationships she made along the way and how those relationship have colored her views on her existence. It’s slow moving filled with her ruminations over her life many of which I found interesting when they were not repetitive.

I found the main character to be too passive and lacking curiosity. I would think that the vast array of knowledge out there would be so interesting to learn if you had all the time in the world, but she doesn’t seem to bother to learn about anything but art, even when she questions it or has the opportunity to question others of her kind about their existence and the changes that she is experiencing. There were almost constant references to Czernobog and how this mythological being was stalking her and taking everything and everyone that she loved away from her, yet I was disappointed in the exploration of the history of Czernobog and the resolution of the situation.

Other characters that dropped out of the story along the way would reappear then disappear and I would have liked further resolution. Just when I thought things were about to get interesting and some of my questions would be answered, the book ended. My takeaway was that she was in denial for so many years and these ruminations have brought her to the point of acceptance of her life and the ability to move forward, but I would have enjoyed a more informative ending.

Thank you to Netgalley and Flatiron Books for a copy provided for an honest review.

The blurb of this book was very interesting to me. While it referred to her increasing “hunger”, I didn’t realize that her hunger was for blood. I don’t read vampire books - truly can’t stomach them, so I couldn’t read far into this one. I believe the description of this book was misleading for readers, like me, who wouldn’t understand the “hunger” reference. This book was not for me!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book. I will not be publishing my review anywhere but on NetGalley.

The God of Endings is a literary take on vampire tales. The writing was beautifully lyrical and fit well with the story that Holland was trying to tell. However, the pacing was very slow and I really struggled to connect with our main character as she deals with the morality of being a vampire and her place in the world as it changes.

I did enjoy how all of the timelines related to each other and how we learned about Anna’s history in segments. The contrast in her beliefs and actions as time progressed was really interesting and thought provoking.

I would recommend this book if you enjoyed The Invisible Life of Addie la Rue. It definitely had a similar feel, but different enough to not feel like you are reading the same book.

Thank you to NetGalley, Flatiron Books, and Jacqueline Holland for an e-arc of The God of Endings in exchange for an honest review.

Video of a reading from the beginning and my response appear online at TikTok.

I am very conflicted about this book. The writer has a lovely, fluid writing style that pulls you in and carries you along. That’s one of the best aspects of this work.

Then, there are the subjective factors to consider. While the writing style is nice, the material is dense. How you respond to it is a matter of taste. It can feel a bit overdone at times, and it does make the narrative feel slow because of the volume of set up and description.

Stories about eternal beings have the disadvantage of sometimes covering a lot of time, and this is one of those stories that covers multiple decades. Some earlier events do influence the character in the end, but most of the settings are disposable, by which I mean they have little impact on the story and, with a few exceptions, the events could occur almost anywhere. The losses do explain her loneliness, which is a key motivating factor for her decisions.

My biggest criticisms center on two things. One is a language choice, referring to people with “chocolate” skin. It’s 2023, and we should be beyond writers using food terms to describe Black people. Maybe 15, 20 years ago it wasn’t as widely known that this is offensive, but there’s been plenty of commentary about this for years now, and between the author and editor, this never should have happened in a 2023 release. Frankly, given the writer’s dense style, it’s also awfully simplistic. They mainly describe the skin of characters who aren’t white (with the exception of the sallow skin reference) giving us the presumptive “white characters are the norm” mentality at work here.

The other big criticism I have has to do with the ending. Here’s the non-spoiler opinion: I hated it with a passion. It took a book hovering between 3.5-4 stars down to 2 stars.

Here’s a slight spoiler opinion. The fact the protagonist had such strong views about what happened to her, and then she did what she did in the end … I found that hard to believe and I despised her for it. She learned nothing. And frankly, there’s always a way to kill something, even something eternal. She had options. She chose to carry on and blame others for being unhappy and then to inflict that on a child after her multiple lifetimes of resentment? WTAF? No. Characters don’t have to be likable. But this is pure hypocrisy. There was no shift in the character’s thinking about her own experience. And although there’s an attempt to somehow justify this as a better outcome for the boy, it was just plain wrong. There are always options in the scenario created. She went straight to nuclear after almost two centuries of resenting everyone involved in her turning. Obviously, I didn’t buy it as fitting the character or story. Your mileage may vary.

A personal note: I am a slow reader. This was a long 480-page review. Since the ending did not work for me, my reaction to it probably had a lot to do with the fact that I spent a lot of hours reading this book, only to feel completely let down.

I keep giving this a try and I can't get past the 15% mark without being bored and confused and unsure what the heck is happening. Maybe it just has too much religious content for me? I don't know if it gets better but I cannot make myself care to continue and find out.

The God of Endings is a compelling and fresh take on the vampire novel. The writing style is very literary and lends itself well to the centuries through which both we, the reader, and the God of Endings follow our main character. Would highly recommend for fans of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.

This story is a prime example of the difference between good writing and good story telling. Holland is very clearly a talented writer; she can't paint a scene for the reader so clearly and evoke emotion with turns of phrase. However, the story was entirely dull. How can a story about the life of a secret immortal who lives on blood be dull you ask? You give the vampire an intensely melancholy life outlook and a flair for the melodramatic. I couldn't force myself to get back into Collette's/Anna's mind, so I skimmed to the entirely predictable end after about 60%. So if you are in the mood for some beautiful writing used to tell a boring story, pick this up. But I really think there are better options out there.

**Thank you NetGalley and Flatiron Books for the eARC**