This book was quite some firsts for me. My first Netgalley book, my first mystery book, my first young adult toeing the new adult line… and it was a good one. In the beginning, the gods and mythology theme caught my attention because I’m the biggest Percy Jackson fan, and now I can tell you that this book is ideal for Percy Jackson fans that are looking for something more adult (it does come with some slight triggers so I advise researching beforehand if you need to). While it does have its similarities due to the integration of mythology in the present, this is its own unique story.
It caught my attention right from the beginning, the first chapter opening with a bang and setting the overall tone for the book. I did not know what to expect from a mystery book but this one kept me flipping the pages, there was always something happening. The whole book was so fast-paced that, while I never got bored, I struggled to keep track of the new characters and developments and needed to take a break from what felt like a race, or the transition between events sometimes felt rushed, not giving enough development or dept to certain characters or parts when it could’ve.
I also have to mention how the diversity of this book blew me away. Besides being a strong and funny main character, Cairn is part of the LGBTQ community and unlike how most mythology adaptations focus on Greek or Roman myths, this book doesn’t stop at one mythology. While you could say its most important one is Inuit, it also includes Egyptian, Aztec, Haitian Vodou, and so many others besides Greek and Roman mythologies.
I guess it could be said that the most crucial part of a mystery novel is the mystery being solved unexpectedly… and this one did it perfectly. At the risk of sounding cliché, I thought that I knew what was going on, but in reality, I literally did not see it coming. The twists and how everything unfolded felt like it attacked me from the back and slapped me in the face (but in a very good way).
Finally, I need to talk about the ending (or in this case, the epilogue). It was the kind of balanced ending that leaves you asking for more and that could perfectly accommodate a sequel but at the same time leaves you satisfied in case the book ends up staying as a standalone. Having said this, while you could say it was the ideal ending, it felt slightly anti-climatic for me. Compared to the fast pace and the constant new developments that I read during the book, this last part felt tame and didn’t necessarily add anything new.
Overall, it was an enjoyable and engaging read. I vastly recommend it, especially if you like ancient mythology, mystery, or are looking for a fantasy book that is easy to get into.

The story is a mix of many genres, fantasy, specially about mythology, superheroes and villains and mystery. May times, books want to be too much, but in this case, I felt like it all came together nicely. Even though it would have been nice to have a list of gods and goddesses so it is easier to remember and find out who they were, there weren’t too many mythology elements that would make it too confusing. This makes the book great for someone who wants to know more mythology, but doesn’t want a book that is only about that.

Cairn is the main character and she is flawed for sure. She has a messy personality and makes chaotic choices that don’t always work out the way she wants. It was refreshing to read about that. However, I do agree with some reviews that say she was good at a lot of things in a short amount of time. Fighting was one of those things, something that happens in this book a lot. On the other hand, her flawed choices come back into play with her girlfriend, Delphine. Her relationship with her was great to read about and felt like what a real one would be.

Other side characters were nicely written, though I felt like they could be a bit more than their god and goddess persona, making the entire cast interesting enough. Mythology was well mixed with real life. I felt myself caring for many of them, especially for Nook and Vulcan. Their characters really added to the story, ultimately making this a found family story.

I loved this story. Terrific perspective, characters I want to see in all the fan art I can get my hands on, and twits and turns I wasn't expecting!

ome vendettas have more lives than others.

The gods walk among us. Some lurk in the shadows, masquerading as mortals; others embrace their celebrity status, launching careers from Hollywood to Capitol Hill.

One of them just murdered Cairn Delacroix's mother.

As Cairn sifts through the rubble, she uncovers a conspiracy two decades in the making: a cursed island, the fellowship of gods who journeyed there, and the unspeakable act that intertwined their fates. One by one, the members of that voyage are dying, and Cairn's investigations land her in the crosshairs of the rogue goddess responsible.

With the help of Nanook, a polar bear god turned detective, Cairn descends into Boston's underworld of supernatural crime and political aspiration. To avenge her mother and unmask her assassin, she’ll first have to reckon with a gut-wrenching secret that will rewrite the life she thought she knew.

Shocking twists cascade toward an explosive finale in this thrilling new mystery from Karsten Knight, author of the WILDEFIRE trilogy and NIGHTINGALE, SING.

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This Eternity of Masks and Shadows kind of dragged on and on for me. Which definitely makes this a disappointment because the synopsis made the book sound so freaking good. Now don't get me wrong, it had some interesting concepts and plots to dive into but it all just fell flat.

In it, you will meet Cairn Delacroix and Nanook. She just witnessed her mother being murdered and he's a polar bear god/detective. Sounds kind of interesting, right? The only downfall was the entire book after that. Cairn was just blah to me. It's weird that she's a god and stuff but knew next to nothing about all the other gods. Or heck, the history of them.

Other than that, there was just so much inconsistency throughout the book that just didn't make anything remotely believable. I get it, it's fantasy and such but dang - at least make the training and other stuff realistic.

The only good thing that came out of this book was the romance between Cairn and Delphine. Which I think is kind of sad to say that I wanted to dive into this book for the mythology and fantasy of it all.. but the romance took the cake? Eh, oh well. I tried the book I guess..

I was surprised how much I liked this book. I tend to go for character-driven stories and realistic fiction. That being said, I was instantly pulled in to the mystery and the characters here. I was also impressed by the ambitious merging of genres in this book- you have vigilante superheroes, gods, murder mystery, and YA romance elements and it all works! I would read more by Karsten Knight and recommend this book to anyone regardless of genre preference.

Thank you to Netgalley for giving me this copy in return for an honest review.

Firstly, the cover of this book is absolutely beautiful and was one of the reasons why I felt so drawn to the novel. It is stunning and really sets a high standard for the book.

Whilst I did enjoy the plot, there was something that just didn't keep me completely gripped. Perhaps it was the characters as I didn't find them as relatable as they could have been and at some points, I found Cairn to be rather irritating.

With that being said, it was a good book and I would like to read more from Karsten Knight.

THIS COVER!! Just as beautiful as the story within. It was just that good! I mean, it has a gay protagonist and cultural appreciation!
Just so good!

Can’t download it. When I go to NetGalley shelf it says file not found when trying to download ☹️ I was looking forward to reading this myself but my son showed an interest too.

I want to thank netgalley and the publisher for an E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I would recommend it to my friends in a heart-beat! I absolutely loved the mythology woven into this story! It was so well done, and was developed in such a unique form. Gods walking among humans? Murder mystery in this fantastical universe? Wonderful characters? I loved it all! I also enjoyed seeing characters grow throughout the story- to me, this is one of the hallmarks of a great story. This book was also incredibly fast-paced and kept me hooked the entire time. Overall, this was an excellent read!

If there was one thing I was going to change, it would be to have more world building thrown into the story. I would love to explore this world more!

this book was low-key a mess. the plot made next to no sense. the only thing i liked was the actual writing style itself. everything else needed several more rounds of edits and revisions.

i really enjoyed reading this book, the characters were great and I really enjoyed the plot. I didn't read any previous books by the author. I really liked the way the author writes.

The storyline itself was interesting, but it felt a bit rushed sometimes. There are also many genre crossovers which make it hard to get the right emtions. The characters on the other hand, were amazing. They were well written, and had a round character-personlity. Also loved the way the author described the surroundings.

Thanks to NetGalley and Karsten Knight for giving me and eARC of this book in exchange of an honest review.

The minute I got this book I started it, that was around 90 minutes ago, why am I writing this then? Because I DNF'd the book at 48%

I was really interested in this one since I first heard about it, anything with gods? Sign me in. And in that regard, this one definitely delivered, the mithology is quite diverse, taking from many different ones, for example, the mother of our MC is the Inuit goddess Sedna. In this world, gods, are reincarnated in human bodies and that is just such a great concept. As good as the premise being Sedna appering dead and our MC trying to find out who did it.

Then... what happened?

Cairn happened. I just couldn't with the main character, she kept making this stupid. inappropriate jokes, mostly around dead people that simply weren't funny. It reminded me of Gideon from Gideon the Ninth, but in a bad way.. Also, I just didn't connect with "superhero" aspect of the novel. I think it tried to cover too many things at the same time.

So, in conclusion, will this book find an audience? 100%, but you will need to click with the humour and the MC to enjoy it. Something that, sadly, I couldn't do and makes me incredibly sad.

Great premise, not a great execution, so my final rating is a 2.5, right in the middle.

This book had many genres: crime, action, f-f, superhero, and it succeeded in most of them. I loved the inclusion of gods from all sorts of different cultures and religions. So often stories with gods and myths are very European centric and it was great to see so much diversity.

The main character is the daughter of an Inuit goddess, who is trying to solve the mystery of her mother's murder. Her partner in crime was a detective who also was a god, and I think the book could have been a bit longer to incorporate his story more. But the villain was a bit of a surprise and the ending was open-ended, suggesting this could live as a trilogy.

4.5 stars
Thanks to Netgalley for this amazing fantasy book!
But can I call it merely a fantasy book? Because it was so much more than that!
HIS ETERNITY OF MASKS AND SHADOWS was such an amazing amalgamation of mystery and mythology, along with just the right amount of romance, that this was definitely was one of my best fantasy reads of 2020. I wish more people would read it for it was amazing!
The intertwining of the various mythologies from various cultures was what drew me in the most. It was just such a unique idea and yet at the same time, such a fantastic one that I have to wonder how it did not occur to someone before. The mystery element was also well maintained throughout - I surely did not expect those twists. I gasped out loud when I came across them!
Overall, I think this is an amazing book and a definite must-read for all fantasy and mythology geeks!

When I first came across this book, I must confess, I committed the classic error of judging a book by its cover and title and assumed that the contents would be something overly romantic, high fantasy, and/or pretentious. That said, I saw all the high reviews and decided to give it a shot, and boy am I glad I did.

To my sheer delight, this book grabbed with within a few pages took me on quite the fun ride. I'd describe best it as The Boys meets Percy Jackson with a gumshoe/Nancy Drew buddy-cop vibe. Some drama, some action, all fun.

As a fan of mythological stories/characters brought into contemporary settings, I loved the variety of deities and stories I was introduced to over the course of the book. Forget being limited to one pantheon or another; Knight embraced them all. Off the top of my head, I recall Inuit, Caribbean, South American, Egyptian, Norse, Germanic, Egyptian, Japanese, and I'm sure I'm missing plenty. The characters themselves, divine and human alike, felt well fleshed out, and the relationships between them genuine.

There were a small items I felt were a bit confusing or inconsistent (the motive of the villain seemed a bit murky, the scientific-but-not-quite nature of divinity), but they really didn't impact my enjoyment of the story or the journeys of the characters at all. Despite its minor flaws, I'd give it a solid 4.5 stars and would happily read more in this universe :) Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

American Gods x Lucifer

This story is a campy murder mystery novel filled with a cast of gods and demigods.

Some themes that may be appealing:
- the main character and her love interest are both BIPOC
- a cast of diverse characters, with some gods I hadn’t heard about before
- wlw storyline
- Marvel-like set up, with a tech guy (Vulcan) supporting the MC and her detective mentor

Some things I personally didn’t like as much:
- It didn’t make sense to me why all these gods are born all over the world, yet somehow all come to the US, and to Boston specifically. Our main character is the daughter of an Inuit goddess, and I think we miss out on some of the more atmospheric stuff related to their culture and the lesser-known stories of mythologies
- I thought the pacing was a bit off, with some parts feeling ADD, jumping around different short scenes, and others dragging.
- The villain’s motive seemed a bit weak after a whole lot of build-up. It felt like there was a deeper, dark story that the author swerved in favor of something morally cleaner and lighter

I'm at least moderately charmed by this book. The writing, while not particularly lyrical or otherwise outstanding, did not have any tangible flaws. And the story, while occasionally a touch too transparent, was good fun.

2.5 stars. The concept is fun, and this is a fun book overall, but I failed to get attached to the characters and the writing was very average. The plot at first was quite good--multiple perspectives are thrown in along with main protagonist Cairn's own--but as time went on and the focus went back squarely to Cairn, I found myself less invested.
Plot-wise, there are a lot of satisfying plot twists in this one as time goes on. Sedna, Cairn's mother, has died, so it's up to Cairn to find her killer, and it gets more complicated from there. It's fine. I don't have too much to say about it despite that there were an awful lot of time-skips for some reason. I also didn't like that the story felt sometimes like it wasn't sure it wanted to focus on the action or on Cairn's sub-plot with Delphine.
Cairn is the only character with much depth. A lone wolf, Cairn is headstrong, solves her own problems unless she can't get to them without help, and is quite determined. She's pretty similar to most YA protagonists as of late besides her name, which her geologist dad apparently gave her. She also has a girlfriend in the form of Delphine, another character.
The writing, as said before, is pretty average. The galley I read felt like it needed another round of revisions, tone-wise, since it read like a middle-grade book instead of a YA one. There are lots of action scenes, but they're very cut-and-dry. Every action is written out and that's about it.
The world-building is pretty minimal. It's our world, but there are also reincarnating gods from various pantheons. Nothing super deep here or interesting. I did like that some more obscure gods were mentioned, though.

Overall, a fun read but not one with any staying power. If the characters had been more fleshed-out and the plot had been tighter I might've liked this one more.

First of all, allow me to appreciate the author, publishers, and the Netgalley team for the opportunity to review the book.
In the Eternity of Masks and Shadows protagonist Cairn is on a journey to discover the truth about her mother's death and uncovers the secrets of the pantheon of gods, that are masked as mortals and walk among people and cause some disturbance in the world.
The work is a 3.2 star read for me, overall a very interesting YA work, with tons of twists and very fast-paced, quick, it does not bore the reader, however, I wish we get a lot more insights to pantheon life and customs because I really loved this aspect of the work and would definitely love to learn more and bring some primal wisdom into the work. This was a very interesting read, however not very deep.
The book perfectly shows human nature, behavior, and the consequences of some behavior.
I loved the mythology, the world, and would love to dive deeper into that aspect.
Many thanks for the opportunity to review the book.