Cover Image: Saint Death's Daughter: 2023 World Fantasy Award Winner!

Saint Death's Daughter: 2023 World Fantasy Award Winner!

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Member Reviews

This was a hard one. I seriously considered dnf a couple of times, but i was too intrigued by the story to do so. I loved the characters and the plot, but getting through it all wasn't easy. So much information was given but not all was properly explained. It made for an sometimes confusing read. That being said, i am glad that i continued the journey with Lanie and finished the book.

I got this arc in exchange for an honest review.

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I liked the concept and and tried to get behind it but found it a struggle to keep myself focused on the page. I liked the dialogue but needed to feel more grounded in the world. Unfortunately, it was a DNF.

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An interesting concept!
This is quite a long book filled with a lot of ideas. I liked our MC Lanie. She's motivated, fierce and her determination. I thought the world-building was quite a lot to get my head around, but when I did, I enjoyed it. The writing was great and the Nita and Goody were fantastic side characters. The necromancy element was unexpected because I forgot the blurb when I began reading, but I thought it was very well done!
I only wish it was slightly shorter so it could pack a bigger punch.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an e-arc!

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Saint Death’s Daughter was quite a read. There is A LOT going on. Not necessarily in a bad way, more like a Game of Thrones type of way. There is so much to keep track of. Sometimes things got confusing or I had to kind of back track or look at the footnotes just to get things straight in my head again. I thought the plot was well thought out, but the amount of information thrown at the reader to achieve the plot made this book more of a burden than anything. I found myself getting easily side tracked or only reading a few pages and then wanting to put it down. Overall, it wasn’t for me but I don’t think that makes it “bad”

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This was a beautiful book. I loved the lively, diverse set of characters and the generous prose of the novel. The scenery was set so well, the world building was incredible, but I did find myself lost in some of the prose during very important scenes. The beginning of the book was very enticing, but then got a little lengthy before the story truly began. Good read and I'll recommend to my students.

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DNF at 15%
I really wanted to like this but it feels like work to read. There is just a constant barge of information that prevented me for getting into the book. I picked it up a couple times just to make sure, because the blurb sounds so great, but that wasn’t the case.

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Our main character is a necromancer in a family that has always dealt in death. After her sister is revenge assassinated, she had to go on the run and hide with her young niece and her sister's enslaved/forced husband. She needs to figure out if she can defeat the extremely powerful bird wizard who is now after her niece.

I found this a very difficult book - it's ridiculously overcomplicated, it's hard to read and it's far too long. I feel like the author got carried away with dumping in absolutely everything they'd thought of, with consideration to plot or pacing, and no one reined them back in. It could have been half the length without making any difference to plot or character development.

The whole book is full of irrelevant information which just keeps stretching out the book. I'm not sure if all the asides about ancestral deaths were supposed to be comedic, but there were just so many. And maybe this was just the formatting of the arc, but having footnotes only at the end of very long chapters just meant it was either difficult to find where I'd been, or I couldn't remember what they referred to if I just waited until I got to them.

I really don't want to have to work out what a word means from the context every few paragraphs (whether they're made up words, or very archaic word choices). And when that wasn't the issue, you had to contend with the fact that it seemed like the synonym checker had been used for every other word to make sentences as unwieldy as possible. This slowed down the book even more for me, and my normal reading speed was cut down to 30-50% from normal.

It's so complicated that when there was a big reveal in the latter section of the book, I had to read it multiple times to understand what was going on. And I'm still not sure why certain decisions were made in that rooftop scene.

It also contains repeated torture of a 7 year old child, which is an irredeemable line for a villain to cross for me (and yet was somehow... acceptable in the book?)

3 stars, rounded up from 2.5

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I was so excited for this one, the premise sounded absolutely amazing and I love the cover. Unfortunately, I found myself completely and utterly bouncing of it, and while I did manage to reach the end it felt like a battle to get that far. It is certainly one I would consider returning to again in the future, in the hopes that it was just bad timing because I will say that the worldbuilding is absolutely fantastic and definitely my favourite part of the book, although I will say that it is incredibly detailed, almost excessively so in places, so that it felt like you were splitting your attention a bit too much between that and what was happening with the characters and the story. I also love that it deals with necromancy, and has a refreshing take on it - and that was one of the main appeals of this book in the first place. However, I couldn't say that was I was taken with the characters, but the main problem was that it felt as though there was just too much being attempted, and it fell short of the mark for me, and the pacing didn't help, as there was parts that dragged while others felt too rushed.

However, I can absolutely see why people will love this book and it does have some truly excellent aspects, but on this read it was the flaws that caught me. Still, it is one I would like to return to.

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I am a necromancy fiend, you present me with a book about necromancy - you bet I'm going to want to devour that book! I was pleasantly surprised by Saint Death's Daughter which is a whirlwind of a story of many disparate parts but with a whole lot of heart (and bones...so many bones).
I loved the character of Lanie, our protagonist, so much. Not only is she a fantasy character with glasses - always a win - but she also captures a heap of incredibly nuanced emotions and feelings across the breadth of this book. Lanie and the other main characters are thrown into all sorts of circumstances across this story and I always felt like Lanie's response to those things, for better or for worse, felt incredibly genuine.
I also enjoyed the magical aspect of the story, the necromancy itself was fascinating and did one of my favourite things a magic system can do - having some core ideas but multiple different applications and plenty of room for experimentation and discovery. I've read many a bad take on necromancy but this one was very well done.
My biggest criticism of this book is that I think it is about 100 pages too long, I'd probably want to cut down the beginning and get into the meat of the story a little bit quicker - though there is a lot of set up to be done I grant you - it was just a little bit hard to get to the 30% mark and I did consider DNFing. In this instance I'm very glad that I didn't as I think the mid-end portion of this book is so well worth reading and contained some truly remarkable scenes. Just a tiny bit of a more ruthless edit might have been necessary for this to get an extra star from me.
I look forward to reading more from C S E Cooney in the future, this worldbuilding, these characters, the magic- there's going to be great things in the future I'm sure!
I received a free digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley all opinions are my own.

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This was laugh-out-loud hilarious and the characterization of the individuals in this book were wonderful, I can't wait to read the next book in the series.

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Saint Death's Daughter by C.S.E. Cooney is a vividly imagined fantasy, the first in a planned trilogy, that from the very first pages takes the reader and drops them into the middle of an unfamiliar world. There is a lot of humour in the book, at times the writing style, particularly the footnotes, reminded me of Terry Pratchett, however at times it was a little too meandering for even my tastes. The characters are interesting and that is what kept me reading at first, as the first section of the book is something of an info dump and I was struggling to find a reason to keep going around the 50 page mark. However I am glad I did and overall I did enjoy the book, though not as much as I hoped I would from the blurb and summary. Once the book moved forward in time and we were introduced to some more (very interesting ) secondary characters, I found it much more interesting and I was glad that I had kept going. The magic system was clever and well explained, and I am keen to know more.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher , all opinions are my own.

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I tried so hard to read this book!. I really struggled getting into the world of Lanie and Nita. Lanie was a necromancer who had a heart of gold which is rather unusual seeing as she's supposed to be a killer!! I really warmed to her character, and although Nita her sister was a darker character, she loved her sister and valued the gifts she had.
What put me off was the use of long and rare wordings that I spent a lot of time looking up to be sure to follow the story. In doing that I then lost the flow of the story which was very aggravating. I persevered but just got totally fed up with the strange words, names etc. The characters themselves were well described and I got to know them but it all got too much and I had to give up. This is only the second book I have not been able to finish so you can tell I usually persevere.
CSE Cooney you have a wonderful and fanciful imagination but I would have preferred it if it had been easier to read and absorb as a reader!
Thanks to Netgalley for the free arc book for an honest review.
#Netgalley, #SaintsDeathsDaughter, #csecooney.

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Thank you to Solaris and NetGalley for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book was utterly and delightfully weird and so wonderful. I don't think I've ever read a book so centred around death that also manages to feel so alive. There's so much heart in this book; the author does an incredible job conveying Lanie's emotions to the reader. I felt everything she felt right along with her, and it was such a pleasure to see her grow into both her powers and her self by the end of the book.

I loved all of the different types of magic in this magic, but especially Lanie's necromancy. Necromancy in media is often presented as an unsavoury form of magic, so I really enjoyed this version of it, along with the care Lanie has for her creations.

I also loved all of the secondary characters who become Lanie's found family! They're all so warm-hearted and welcoming, and they're also extremely queer which was absolutely delightful.

I really enjoyed the extra little tidbits of worldbuilding/info that were in the footnotes. They threw me a little at first because there's no set up for who's writing them, but once I got used to that they were really fun.

This is the first book in a trilogy and I'm very much looking forward to finding out how it continues! I really want an explanation for the thing that happens between Lanie and Canon Lir at the end of this one!!

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𝚁𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠 𝚃𝚒𝚖𝚎 💀

Saints Death’s Daughter - C.S.E Cooney ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨/5

I was super excited to receive my first ever arc! And OMG it did not disappoint, such a good book 🙌🏽 (it is an unedited arc so there were some grammar mistakes but honestly, I can’t even write in Spanish (my native language) so I’m not complaining 😂
Anyway.
The book itself is super original: a necromancer that’s allergic to death and its born in a family of assassins… What could go wrong?
Though there were some points in the story where I was like…WTF? But it was easy to go back to the plot and I was in for the ride.
(I did want a different ending for the protagonists but that just me being a romantic so whatever)
Have you ever receive any arcs?

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This book was a wild ride! The world building is one of the things I appreciate the most in a book and I love how complex and interesting it was, the magic system was just so cool! I am weak for cool magic systems. I have to confess I hear necromancy and I was into it already, however, the writing was a bit complex and it took me a while to get hooked. But this is a really enjoyable experience and I really liked the diversity in characters, the rep was great! In general this was an amazing book and I really recommend it!

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Saint Death’s daughter is a book that presents a conundrum for me. There is so much of the book that I loved, yet something about it just didn’t quite work for me. The first thing that got my attention was the way in which C.S.E. Cooney has chosen to write about necromancy. In this novel it’s something to be cherished, beautiful and delicate, not violent, or bloody, and definitely not to be feared. The way in which Lanie interacts with the undead she brings to life reminded me of the way I’ve felt about undead creatures and characters in video games; no revulsion, just seeing them as something unique.

Lanie is a very easy character to like, her past and her circumstances lend themselves easily to a sympathetic view, however, she’s not without flaws. Often caught up in her magic she can make mistakes, not recognise other people’s feelings or views on things, especially her abilities. All the characters are full of life (ironic considering there is so much death and undeath in this book, and yes this goes for those characters too!), colourful and brilliantly written. You have never met a family quite like the Stones. The Adams Family comes close, except the Stones have no “Family Values” so you can imagine what it was like growing up in that house for Lanie, especially considering her allergies.

Her allergies were of particular interest to me as someone with chronic illness. In the world the author has created necromancers have such a personal connection with death, with the goddess of death, that they feel an echo of violence physically. If they touch someone who has recently come into contact with violence, physically or even in their thoughts, echo wounds appear on their own body. Lanie refers to this as an allergy; an allergy to violence and death. In many ways her childhood experience is much like someone with chronic illness, especially in the way she has to deal with judgement from her family. I didn’t feel that C.S.E. Cooney had used disability as a plot device, rather I felt that she had found a way to represent disability in a fantasy setting in a way that did not reduce the disabled character to a stereotypical fantasy role, such as war veteran.

There is another disabled character in Saint Death’s Daughter, the charismatic Havoc who runs a public house, and she is described as favouring her right leg, using a cane to move around and missing a finger. Her disability has an obvious effect on her movement, yet it does not slow her down and Havoc lives her life as fully as she wishes. There’s no reason that it shouldn’t, and I appreciated that C.S.E. Cooney showed that side of Havoc as well as not ignoring her limitations. There is a scene when Lanie, Havoc and their friends are drinking, and they run out of wine. Havoc doesn’t hesitate in pointing out that it’s difficult for her to go get the wine, and rather than a big deal being made about her disability the scene focuses on the friends teasing each other about who is going to go get the wine. It’s a scene of banter, flirting and everything that would realistically happen in a setting with a disabled person and a group of friends. You may wonder why it was necessary for Havoc to even mention that she couldn’t go get the wine, well, it was in her public house and the friends were gathered next door. As simple as that.

As I read Saint Death’s Daughter I learned that C.S.E. Cooney is a master at building a unique world, one that she has written beautifully. She writes physical appearances like an artist, pulling colours from palettes and painting them into words. I felt like I was reading a true fantasy novel where everything was so different from ours, where people came in all the hues of the rainbow, and it was amazing. Just as people came in every appearance, so did their personalities and their relationships. It seems to me that C.S.E. Cooney made a point to avoid using terminology to define sexuality and gender in Saint Death’s Daughter, and the nearest similarity to what we’re familiar with is marriage. However, marriage can take place between anyone of any gender, and it is quite common for marriages between multiple people to happen. What we would call polygamy, although such a word is never uttered in the book.

For those interested in what specific LGBT representation is included in Saint Death’s daughter, it is difficult to give provide specific answers because as noted the author doesn’t literally spell out a character’s sexuality or gender. It would be unnecessary (possibly even unthinkable) to do so in the world she has created. What I can confirm is that there are same gender relationships and flirtations, polyamorous flirtations and many non-binary characters and known relationships with non-binary characters. It is uncertain whether the non-binary characters are transgender. When C.S.E. Cooney introduces most of her characters she focuses on their facial features, only including further details when they’re relevant. For example, she describes the location of wizard marks (colourful markings on the skin that wizards have) in great detail, or the physique of warriors, both of which are relevant. This may be a tactic to guide the reader to fill in the gaps themselves, or a quiet comment on our culture’s obsession with appearance. It could be as simple as words needed to be cut for the final draft.

What it does mean for the non-binary characters is that it’s up to us as the readers to interpret them as we wish. We are given their names and their pronouns, and I like that C.S.E. Cooney has left it at that. If only our own culture could leave things alone in such a way. Likewise, I appreciated the way that relationships flowed so easily from one to another. Characters flirted with ease, there was no embarrassment or uneasiness, it was just adults enjoying each other’s company. It felt very reminiscent of the land of Terre D’Ange in Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel Legacy and the precept “Love as thou wilt”.

There is also a fantastic tradition known as ‘floomping’ and ‘froofing’ on the holy fire feast day of Midsummer. Both traditions involve dressing up in a style that is completely different to one’s usual fare, either to become an extravagant opposite of themselves (floomping) or to reveal their fanciest, happiest inner self (froofing). To floomp is to dress as the opposite gender, while to froof is to dress in the brightest, decorative and fanciest clothes and makeup. It is also possible to do both at once. I imagine that this is what PRIDE is probably like (I have never been able to attend due to my chronic health conditions), but rather than a minority group of people celebrate it, the entire society does. It is a celebration of all the things that our culture shuns as being wrong, and it is glorious.

I am not usually a fan of poetry; I like my poetry in brief bites and to look at it from afar. So it surprised me that I enjoyed the rhyming language of one of the races that C.S.E. Cooney has created. The Quadiíb are fascinating, and I wish we could have seen more from their perspective. They speak in rhymes and couplets, and it was just lovely. As they only spoke in their native language part of the time it meant that their flowery medieval-style dialogue didn’t get too much for me. I think a whole book of their dialogue would have been too much to bear, whereas it was a nice break from normality here and there.

There are a few additional things I want to mention that I think people need to know about Saint Death’s Daughter. First, this is not a young adult book. For some reason seventeen GoodReads users have this listed as young adult. I can assure you it is not. I can only assume someone learned that Lanie begins the book as a teenager and assumed that she stayed that age; she does not. The book jumps from when Lanie is fifteen to when she is twenty-two, and then again to when she is twenty-eight. Based on the age of the protagonist, the content, reading level and language, this is not a young adult book.

The language in Saint Death’s Daughter is quite dense, there is a fair use of jargon and as identified by Claudia in her review, C.S.E. Cooney is fond of using complicated sentence structures. Some of her writing works beautifully, in my opinion, however, the general density of it is one of the things that I think made this book not work that well for me. This coupled with a slow, drawn out journey from beginning to end and scattered plot progression just did not work for me.

There have been complaints about huge information dumping at the start of the book in the form of a list of calendar dates, list of gods and two family names. In hindsight, this probably would have been better suited at the back of the novel which is where lists like this are usually found in my experience. However, I’m going to be blunt here; if you’re put off by a list then this isn’t the book for you. If you’re wondering whether the information is relevant, the gods come up throughout the book, but their identities are explained. The calendar dates are given under each chapter and exist for an added bit of information; they’re not essential to your reading experience. The essential dates are listed clearly in countdown format as well as being spoken about in the book itself. If you wish you could always refer back to the list while reading by using a traditional bookmark to mark the page or the electronic bookmarking system if reading an e-book.

While everything came together in the end, it just felt as though it took the longest roads to get there. Yet at the same time I can’t say that is a negative as I would in other books because it felt like it worked? I don’t see how Saint Death’s Daughter could have been told in any other way. As I said at the start of the review, this book is a conundrum for me. Normally I read a book that I have some critical thoughts about and that’s it, however, with Saint Death’s Daughter they are less critical and more me recognising that they worked, just not in a way that works for me personally. I guess the best way I can explain it is that this is a book that feels more like a carefully constructed masterpiece that I can admire rather than a book that I can fall in love with. It is a beautiful, stunning work of literature, more art than words, and something that I recommend everyone reads. I just didn’t quite fall hopelessly in love with it and that’s what is needed for me to give a book a 4 or 5-star rating.

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I tried to get into this book, but the author created a really dense world, where new things were introduced almost every sentence and it was difficult for me to try and figure out what information was important, and which wasn't. I ended up giving up halfway through. If you are a big fan of rich and detailed fantasy worlds I think this might be worth giving a try, but I don't think this novel was meant for me.

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Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital ARC it has not affected my honest review.

I went into Saint Death's Daughter with a clear idea of what I would be reading but unfortunately this didn't happen. By the 40% mark the story was proving to be inconsistent despite the vivid world and the strong characters. I loved Lanie and Nita but as the story went on, it became apparent that this book wasn't sure what it was trying to be.

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Actually 3 1/2 stars
Lanie has been born into a family of royal assassins. She and her sister lose their parents and due to debt may lose their ancestral home. Ironically Lanie is allergic to even the mention of violence, though she possesses death magic, and the ability to raise the dead. Well, she's trying. Everyone wants to use her for her power and connection to the goddess of Death. Will she yield or maintain her freedom and her power for her own?

In a quite original world with fantastical elements, the author's inventiveness is something to behold (I really like the days of the week like Flameday). The narrative gifts us with a playful tone and quirkiness to spare, permeated by darkness and melancholy. It is a successful cocktail of different vibes creating its own wonderous ambiance.

There is a lot of internalizing in this book, plus talking about nothing and everything at the same time. A rhythmic pace to the writing, almost musical, and a somewhat poetic molding to the language. There are instances where I envied the figurative speech.

A plethora of details for the descriptions immerses you into the world and has your imagination roaring. The author gets carried away, and you along with her. There is a lot of info to digest and because of that and all of the peculiar names (which are fun I must say) sometimes it needs extra effort to follow the events mentioned. Let us not forget the wondrously unusual words, for example thwackingly or perforce.

The world and story are built gradually, maybe too gradually cause the story does lag in parts. Mostly in the first half, not so much in the second. I also think the book was way longer than needed. If it were shorter, not lulling over certain events, it would have been much better.

Lanie is a character you want to instantly protect. Her sister, conniving as she is, not so much. There are unexpected characters you will enjoy like Goody and Grandpa Rad, and I just smile thinking of her: Havoc.

A book about family, faith and promises, it is like nothing you have ever read before, with a type of writing so inviting you will want to learn more and continue this series.

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Saint Death’s Daughter by C. S. E. Cooney is a brilliant debut. It’s well-written with a wonderfully unique world, a great main character, and a plot that doesn’t follow the worn patterns. It’s advertised as YA, but even though the MC is fifteen in the beginning, she’s an adult responsible for a child for most of the book. There are some dark themes too of childhood abuse and abduction that a delicate reader might find upsetting.

Miscellaneous Stones comes from a long line of sorcerers who have served the ruler for centuries with their murderous talents with magic. She’s the first necromancer to born in a century, and it comes with a rather unfortunate allergy towards violence and death. Even violent thoughts in her vicinity make her body break out in real wounds in response. To keep her alive until she reaches maturity and her full powers, the family has isolated her in their country manor. That hasn’t stopped her big sister Amanita from torturing her for all her life, until she mercifully left for a boarding school.

Then the parents are assassinated, leaving Lanie to deal with a staggering debt. Out of options, she summons Nita back. Nita promptly becomes an assassin to pay the debt. But she doesn’t come home alone. She’s abducted a man who can turn into a falcon to make him her husband, controlling him with his own magic. Mak hates Nita and Lanie, but to avoid having his memory wiped, he succumbs.

The book then skips seven years. Lanie is twenty-two and has come to her powers, though she still has a lot to learn—mostly from a murderous ghost of the previous family necromancer. Mak and Nita have a six-year-old daughter, Datu, who, having grown in a highly dysfunctional environment, isn’t exactly a nice kid. Mak still hates everyone but his daughter. And then Nita is assassinated, forcing Mak and Lanie to flee to protect Datu. To keep her family safe, Lanie has to face the powerful enemy who wants them dead.

The book takes a rather winding path to where it needs to go. Mostly we follow Lanie as she learns to be a necromancer. The book is solely from her point of view, and she is an excellent MC, strong, resilient, and warm-hearted despite her upbringing and the form of magic she wields. She maybe grows a bit too powerful towards the end, but she has friends to keep her in rein.

The supporting cast is interesting and not stereotypical. Mak was my favourite, but he wasn’t given enough airtime. Datu as a tantrum prone, murderous kid was wonderful. The enemies weren’t pure evil and could occasionally be allies too, and the friends Lanie made along the way were a good addition.

But I found the romantic subplot uninspiring. It’s seldom that romances work when they’ve begun before the book does, and this wasn’t an exception. I never felt any connection between Lanie and Lir (the great twist at the end failed to affect me in any way because of it). Mak and Haaken would both have been perfect for a wonderful enemies-to-lovers plot, but neither choice was in any ways utilised. However, the way the book ended gives me hope that the childhood infatuation will be forgotten and there will be a proper romance in Lanie’s future.

The world is interesting and fully developed, with a rich history that is constantly referred to, at least in funny footnotes, large pantheon of gods, and unique ways to practice magic. Nothing is overly explained, but the narrative flows easily and makes everything effortlessly understood.

The book has a good ending. It’s conclusive enough to satisfy, but with a few open threads that’ll hopefully lead to a sequel. I’m definitely looking forward to it.

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