First off, thank you to Rebellion and Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

In all honesty, I DNF'd. I felt like I'd been dropped into a sequel to an already established world/series. This did not feel like the first book in a series. I may one day try to return to this, but it was a LOT to take in with very little set up or explanation.

DNF'd at 20 percent. 2 Stars for overall concept and originality - I really wanted to love this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the author for providing a copy of this book.

This book is so hard to write a review about! I'm still not entirely sure if I overly enjoyed it to be honest. On the one hand, the world building was stunningly vivid and I loved the exploration of new magic systems. The characters were ok, but I didn't feel that connection I crave when discovering a new character. I also struggled with the writing style, it felt formal and overly complicated at times. Overall, I'd recommend this book for sure, but it won't be everyone's cup of tea

DNF @ 50% - I really tried to get through this one. It had a wonderful premise, and I was trying to push through my weakness in the sci-fi genre - BUT the writing was just too complicated for me to wrap my head around. The characters were not my favorite, and I couldn’t vibe with any of them 😅 I really wanted to like this one. I would still recommend it for sci-fi lovers. I just don’t think this is the genre for me.

3.5 stars
Whimsically dark and fantastically creative this magnificently macabre fantasy is possibly the most original and enchantingly eccentric book I’ve read so far this year and I must say, I enjoyed it.

Lanie Stones, the youngest daughter of Liriat’s Royal Assassin and Chief Executioner has never led a normal life. Born with a gift for necromancy and allergic to violence, she was raised in isolation at the family’s crumbling mansion by her friend and revenant Goody Graves.

But when her parents are murdered, it falls to Lanie and her murderess sister Nita to settle the family’s debts or loose their ancestral home—and Goody with it. Appeals to Liriat’s ruler are ignored …until she too, is murdered throwing the entire nation into doubt.

Hunted by Liriat’s enemies, persued by her family’s creditors and haunted by the ghost of her great-grandfather, Lanie needs more than luck to survive the next few months—but when the goddess of Death is on your side, anything is possible.

The world-building was absolutely incredible and so vividly detailed; exploring different religions, cultures, languages and even magic systems that I found myself totally immersed. The history and Lore incorporated was also really enjoyable—if rather dark—honestly, I could’ve spent the entire novel just reading about the darkly humorous conflicts, gossip and overall ridiculousness surrounding the Lanie’s family.

Likewise, I really liked our protagonist, Miscellaneous “Lanie” Stones, who suffers from an allergy to violence (on top of her extremely rare gift of necromancy) and thought it was really interesting to see how she navigates life and the dynamics of her family, who thrive off their long and illustrious history of violence. The long cast of supporting characters that seemingly gravitates around Lanie is also really entertaining and thanks to the first person perspective we get a lot of details into them all. My faves were Goody Graves (the long suffering and centuries old Revenant bound to the Stones ancestral home), Canon Lir (Lanie’s friend, confidante and love interest) and Datu (Lanie’s niece & daughter of her incredibly unlikeable sister, Nita.)

I’m unsure if it was intentional , but the Stones’ family really reminded me of The Addams Family (which is something I really enjoyed) they even have a butler-type servant in the revenant Goody—who’s for the most part quite Lurch-like both in proportions and demeanour. Goody is also portrayed as a bit of a surrogate mother for Lanie and I found their relationship/ dynamics were more emotional than any of Lanie’s familial bonds—I just loved these two in their scenes together.

Though I did enjoy this overall, I did feel that the plot could’ve been more concise and the exposition pared back just a little as the pace did slow considerably in the first and middle portions of the book. But, if you love a slowburn, detail orientated fantasy then I do recommend you check this one out.

Also thanks to Rebellion Publishing and Netgalley for the e-arc.

Saint Death's Daughter by C. S. E. Cooney 5 stars!

I swear, I'd rate this book a Milky Way amount of stars, I loved it that much! One of my absolute faves of the year, and up there with those I know I'll return to again and again.

I'm going to try not to wax lyrical as I prefer to keep reviews brief, but I would highly recommend to anyone looking for an exciting, astonishing, diverse, emotive new fantasy read!

Bits I liked:
- felt fresh and exciting, a new experience in both content and style
- thrilling plot, many emotive ups and downs balanced by quiet, gentle moments, and a killer finale!
- strong descriptive writing with poetic flair, and an intelligent, creative use of unusual and unique words
- wonderfully developed characters with fascinating stories & abilities, with diversity across the BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ and Disabled spectrums
- interesting magic system, cultural differences and even calendar features
- humourous footnotes giving clever snippets of additional lore

Bits I liked less:
- literally nothing, I adored it
- some people may find some of the content disturbing, with some violent scenes or descriptions, so worth noting
- the writing style really surprised me at first, so it's possible some readers may find it harder to get into or follow at points

I'm pretty sure there's more to come, so I CANNOT wait to immerse myself back into Lanie, Lir, Mak, Datu and sweet Doédenna's world. thank you to NetGalley, Rebellion Publishing and of course C. S. E. Cooney for the wonderful experience!

What a brilliant read! I loved the cover and the blurb sounded interesting but had no real expectations beyond it being a new fantasy. It’s so good when you then discover a book that you absolutely love.
We first meet Miscellaneous (Lanie) Stones as a young girl after the death of her parents. She is the youngest daughter in the family of royal assassins and is that rare thing, a necromancer. However she also has a severe allergy to death and violence and suffers echo wounds whenever she is in the presence of these. Lanie is an absolutely brilliant protagonist and I loved reading her journey as she grows up and comes into her powers. She is fiercely loyal to those that she loves and extremely intelligent which is what enables her to survive everything that attacks her and her family. She doesn’t always get things right which just makes her more human.
The plot is complex but basically involves the Stones family fighting for their survival against other powerful families. There is a lot of political intrigue and double dealing as well as magic and the gods taking a direct hand in what is happening. The world building is incredibly detailed even down to footnotes in the text. There were one or two moments when I felt slightly confused as there is a lot happening, but these moments did not spoil my enjoyment of the story. I loved Lanie’s magic and the way that the different characters all have their own magical abilities.
The author has created a perfect blend of slightly macabre fantasy with a real sense of humour. For me, there were definite echoes of The Addams Family at the start, especially with the naming of the characters. There is a bit of romance, but this is very low key and certainly not the focal point of the book. The real themes are about caring for and fighting for those that you love and that your real family is those people, not necessarily the family you were born into.
This is definitely one of the best fantasy books that I have read this year and I’m really grateful to Net Galley and the publishers for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book is about young necromancer Miscellaneous “Lanie” Stones, born into the family of royal assassins and struggling to repay a massive debt after the death of her parents.

Lanie is an easy character to root for, and her relationship with Goody, the undead housekeeper, is very sweet.

I’m around a quarter or more of the way in and I have no idea what the plot is, or where this is going. So far we have gotten a TON of info dumping about the world, the gods, the Stones’ family history, the days of the week, and any other random thing that could possibly be expanded on. It’s overwhelming, and I am not enjoying it. The writing style is unique, and I’m not even sure how to describe it. Detached, maybe? It’s not grabbing my attention at all. There are also footnotes full of even more random information.

I think I’m going to stop reading this one here, unfortunately. But I really like Lanie so maybe I’ll return to it later!

I got an eARC from Netgalley in exchange for a review. Thank you!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for granting me an ARC.

This book intimidated me. I felt like I'd aged fifty years because of how long it was. That said, I really enjoyed it! The main reason I didn't DNF was because I wanted to know what would happen. I wanted to continue and follow Lanie's journey. I do feel like it could have been two books, though.

We follow the story of Miscellaneous 'Lanie' Stones. A girl who has the power of death magic. A necromancer. The story starts with her at age 15, shy and timid of both her magic and her sister Amanita 'Nita' Stones, who returns home after the deaths of their remaining family members, their parents and aunt, bringing her an unwilling companion, Mak.

Years later, tragedy befalls the family as Nita is brutally murdered for her hand in the massacre of a parliament of sorts, the Rooks. The head of the Rooks decides she wants Lanie for herself and intends to induct the necromancer into her fold, but at a price. Lanie must kill her niece, Nita's daughter.

We follow Lanie as she struggles to protect her loved ones, shares a budding romance with best friend Canon Lir and begins to understand her magic more. She is determined not to let the Rooks win and will do anything to ensure her family and friends safety. I feel like the book has been left open for a second novel and find myself wanting to read it, despite its possible size. Thank you C. S. E. Cooney for a truly wonderful read.

Lose yourself in a rich and vibrant fantasy world of depressed necromancers, ghosts, fascinating magic, heart-rending betrayal, and murderous intrigue with C.S.E. Cooney's excellent "Saint Death's Daughter." This book shines with a unique and overwhelming setting that contains a whole host of gods, faiths, ceremonies, laws, naming conventions, and small details that give the story an incredible sense of place that I greatly appreciated. Later chapters devote entire sections to exploring some cultural and civic practices that Miscellaneous "Lanie" Stones' home country of Liriat practices, which helped nail down a place and tone for the plot to thrive in.

And thrive it does, spanning multiple years and following one previously mentioned necromancer-in-self-training Miscellaneous Stones, her adventure starts with her being homebound and mostly loving it except for some inconvenient deaths and impending money trouble, which leads to a cavalcade of further misfortunes when summoning her abusive sister and heir to the Stone family name home from abroad to deal with the problem implodes spectacularly. One of my complaints with the book is that the way the story moves from point to point, especially though time skips, can be a little choppy, but with excellent character work and some shocking twists these gripes are easily set aside.

An incredible first look at a world I can't wait to visit again, with characters I am eager to see more of in the future. Well worth a read.

Miscellaneous (Lanie) Immiscible Stones is a necromancer. Her family honor the god of death (Saint Death). Their motto? “Stoneses die young”

Her family has a long history/bond with the reigning family and have made quite the name for themselves over the years… But all of that comes to an end, and powerful people want to use Lanie and her abilities for their own nefarious ends.

Adventure, death, romance, family, magic… it has it all!

This book is extremely well written. Love the world building, story and characters.

And… it is going to be a trilogy! I can’t wait to read more!

If I could rate this book higher, I would. It's fantastic, involved, engaging, heart breaking and fun (as well as many other adjectives). The only disappointment is that this seems to be the author's only full novel to date so I can't wallow in a deeper pool of them expressing their ideas.

Cooney has built an intricate world in which we follow one thread of possibility to fruition. On the way there, our main character must find her way first within her family (easier said than done), then within her own skin and, eventually, within the greater world as she knows it. What she finds is that what is expected of her as a Stones and as a necromancer can perhaps be accomplished on her own terms rather than everyone else's.

What ultimately shone the most for me in this book is the way that theme, metaphor and worldbuilding all blend so seamlessly together to the point that I even struggle pulling them apart now, but I’ll do my best.

Let me start with the things that I enjoyed about the worldbuilding, specifically.

We’re dealing with a protagonist who performs death magic (Lanie Stones). This makes the setting and the plot inherently macabre, yet somehow Cooney manages to make death feel… whimsical and aphrodisiacal. There is a colorful whimsy to the world, particularly with the way that Lanie’s death magic works, and it gives me strong Studio Ghibli vibes. I’ve seen this book comped to Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, but I honestly don’t think that’s a good comparative title. If anything, it’s only a comparative title insofar as the necromancy itself goes. And I even hesitate to say this because Lanie’s necromancy doesn’t carry the same vibe as Harrow’s. Rather, it carries the opposite. Lanie’s necromancy—indeed, Lanie herself—is all about love. Lanie loves death as a mother, treats death as a mother, as the God that Death is—and she makes us love death in return. She helps up make peace with death. And that’s where the theme sneaks in, but I’ll save that for a couple of paragraphs just yet. So, let’s continue with what I enjoyed about the worldbuilding.

I enjoyed the multicultural setting. We have three nations whose cultures and histories are so interlinked that they become mirror images of each other. This doesn’t mean that they’re not distinct. On the contrary. They are incredibly distinct. What it means, is that we’re dealing with a setting where natural assimilation between cultures has occurred over decades, maybe even centuries, yet each culture still retains its own independence. From my own point of view, this reminded me a lot of the relationship between Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. To give an example: the nations share (some of) the same Gods, but call them by different names. To give another example: there are schools dedicated to one nation within another nation. Another example: each nation has wizards with wizard marks, but they all have a preferred type of magic, dependent on the God in question.

Speaking of the wizard marks, I found those to be a fun conceptual twist to the more familiar concept of a witch mark as these have been used both in fiction and in history.

But, going back to the multicultural setting, this also helped ensure that all the characters had incredibly distinct voices. One nation’s speech is built around rhyming and body language, to give an example. A lot of thought has gone into the linguistic elements of this book. Both in this sense, but also when it comes to placenames and people’s names. You have a constant sense of all these cultures mingling, yet staying distinct at the same time, all based on the terminology used.

Lastly, I loved the constant, but always subtle, subversion of gender norms both through clothing, make-up, and mannerisms. You won’t find traditional gender norms here—and it’s a delight to read.

Transitioning from the worldbuilding into the theme, this wasn’t really a book about death for me. This was a book about love. And that’s why I personally find Harrow the Ninth a misleading comparative title. This book has so much love—unfurling from Lanie’s own large capacity for love—that it didn’t give me the same vibe of Harrow the Ninth at all. But you also have to read a good part of the book before this starts to become apparent to you. The book opens with death, grief, echo wounds, and a literal allergy to death, but it ends with love as the answer to death. It’s about coming to terms with death through love. It’s a love-letter to funerals across the world where people smile through their tears.

Adding onto that, it’s also a question of where you put your love.

In the Gods? In your family? In your friends? In yourself?

Lanie uses love through death (magic) to set herself free from the bonds of her family legacy, all the while still honoring that legacy. And Cooney asks us, the readers, to remember that death is forever the sister to love. Or perhaps daughter, in this case.

As a last and slightly more critical note, I’ll say that the pacing and the plot both slow down at times. I struggled slightly towards the middle, personally. It’s a long book, basically, and that means it naturally will lose momentum at times. For most readers, that is. And especially for YA Crossover fantasy, which is what I would classify this as, age-wise, although there seems to be a general confusion about this (both from the audience and the publisher side). Cooney has magnificent prose, and that prose is allowed to flourish in this book, which can both be good and bad insofar as the pacing of the plot goes. Primarily, for me, it was good, even if I did struggle in places.

3 stars. This was an extremely odd novel. Definitely like nothing I’ve ever read before. The closest I’ve come was while reading the Locked Tomb trilogy by Tamsyn Mir. Everything, from the days and months and years, to the magic system and cultures, was completely original. I loved reading about a psychopath (especially a female one!), and how Lanie’s childhood was so isolating and rigid because of her necromantic abilities. Plus, her name’s Miscellaneous. Like?? That’s pretty cool.

The beginning and end of this book were fast-paced and interesting enough to keep me invested for big chunks at a time. However, the middle dragged quite a bit, and I do believe the book was far too long. Cut out 100-150 pages and it would’ve been much more bearable.

I think maybe this was a me thing when it came to reading this book, not the author or the book itself.
This is a book I would recommend to people who are fans of the complex character and world building of high fantasy reads. Readers that are looking for a complete escape from Earth and reality will love what this book does in weaving together its own pantheon of gods and goddesses with its own world, on its own time schedule even having its own days of the week and time system (following more closely to our 24-hour system, but still not quite the same).
I found it extremely annoying that the author used such pedantic word throughout the part of the book that I read. I think I spent more time looking up definitions of words used in the writing than I actually spent reading the 5% percent I was able to get through. I love reading, so even saying that reading 5% of a book was hard for me is disappointing to me. What is more disappointing to me is that this was one of my anticipated reads for 2022.

This is a strange and delightful writing style, it is so detailed it needs footnotes to keep it on track. this book was hard to put down.

Right! This book seems to divide people quite a lot, and for good reason. What you need to know if you're thinking about reading it is, this isn't an easy read. It's not a book where you can skim sentences because there's a lot of information, think more Harrow the Ninth than other fantasy reads. However, if you're up for a bit of a challenge, and you love the Addams family and learning about the history of the family in this book, this is for you. I loved it - I loved the hilarious names of the characters (my favourites being Quick Fantastic Stones and Even Quicker Stones, lol) and I adored Lanie and her development. I saw a review mention that this should be a YA book because of the age of Lanie and that they DNF'd it quite early - there is a time jump in which Lanie becomes an adult, so this book is more suited to NA/Adult category.

I also LOVED how original everything was, from the names of the seasons to the names of the places and the history and everything. Despite all the information you're given, I don't believe any of it needs to be fully remembered to understand and enjoy the story. I don't recall all the names of the gods or the seasons but the author is very good in the way they use them, having characters re-explain or mention them in certain ways that you're reminded of what they are.

Basically, it's complicated, but it's worth it, in my opinion. Incredibly interesting, well thought out, well written, and funny at times, with a cast of three dimensional and original characters who crawl into your heart and don't get out. (Goody)

Thanks Netgalley for a free copy!

This was an interesting concept for a book. I liked the concept, and I was really looking forward to reading it. The world was hard to adjust and get used to, but it was very interesting. I loved the magic as well.

I was, however, bogged down by the slow start. It was so much longer than it needed to be, and it made it more difficult to get through. Overall, I liked the story, but I wish it would have been tightened up a bit.

This is a big book. Big. The unique names were my favorite thing. Every time a new one was mentioned, I smiled. Lainie's a blossoming necromancer in a family of assassins and executioners extraordinaire. With her parents dead, she and her older sister need to save the estate from the debt collectors. I have to admit, it was slow and "wordy". It takes me right out of the story when I have to stop to find the definition of big hihfalutin words. If this was an attempt to show they were of the elite nobility, it fell flat with me. Some I couldn't figure out even in the context of the sentence. The story was good, but I felt it needed edited and moved along faster. I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book from Netgalley. 3.5 stars

Miscellaneous ‘Lanie’ Stones is a necromancer, born to a line favoured by Saint Death herself. She has always known her destiny: to learn her talent, overcome her allergy to injury, and serve the Blood Royals. But when disaster places her bloodthirsty, selfish sister as the head of the family, her quiet life of study is overturned.

This book is a lot. No, really. It throws you in at the deep end of worldbuilding and doesn’t really check to see if you’re keeping up with the new days of the week and months of the year. But then, you don’t actually need to. A lot of the detail of the worldbuilding can flow over your head and not detract from the story at all. And the story, honestly, is pretty good. It focuses heavily on some very complicated relationships: Lanie and the Revenant who raised her; Lanie and her sister’s captured lover; Lanie and her own lover, the fire priest Canon Lír (who uses they/them pronouns, by the way). I also really enjoyed the magic system and the exploration of Lanie’s powers.

But this book often gets in its own way. The first quarter of the book is prologue. It establishes the key relationships and players in the book and sets up the action well, but it’s a slow start. Several characters have the tendency to ramble or wax poetic about history and genealogy, which sometimes gets in the way of the action more than it builds up the world. There are also a lot of footnotes, which feel oddly disjointed with the narrative style.

I did enjoy the characters and their development, though. Found family and families of choice are both strong themes in this book, which I enjoyed. I genuinely liked many of the characters, and was glad I saw this book to the end.

This book is a lot. I don’t know the last time that I read a book that felt so much like work to read but this was almost entirely worth it. I also know this book fits in with my reasoning for never looking at Goodreads ratings for recommendations because it punishes the different and rewards the mediocre.

In Saint Death’s Daughter we are introduced to Lanie, the youngest daughter from a long line of family Necromancers known for dying young and being evil. Lanie doesn’t quite fit the mold and has the powers but not the evil. We follow her through the years and through many separate trials and tribulations. I can’t really summarize better because I don’t even know what to focus on.

This book was like a demented love child of Nevernight by Jay Kristoff and (hear me out) DiscWorld by Terry Pratchett. I think something that a lot of the negative reviews were kind of missing was that this is a comedy, as well as high fantasy drama. The author uses footnotes and asides, historical ridiculousness, and dark humor throughout the story and peppered into the chapters. A lot of the information presented (and it's a LOT) isn’t necessary to the story itself, it's just some background in the form of a punchline. The story was darkly funny once you knew what it was getting at.

The world building, which is weighed down by just how expansive it is, is still very interesting and once picked up, amazing! We get multiple cultures, regions, religions, dialects, magic systems all in this one story. Which relative to the length of it (seriously if GRRM wrote this world this book would be five million pages long) is astounding. Much like Pratchett’s DiscWorld did over 40+books we get dark and humorous histories of families and conflicts.

The characters were lovely and diverse. Non-binary rep, casual poly, and LGBT+ relationships everywhere. Characters that seemed one note early would come back and be filled in wonderfully later. Lanie was so easy to support and love. I loved all the relationships in this. Even the conflicting ones because they were so interesting.

The plot was so interesting and jumped unexpectedly in so many places that I feel as if I read the plots of three books in one. So many interesting turns and twists that I was constantly engaged (only a little drag in the middle but I couldn’t even blame it, because I too, wanted Lanie to have a bit of a break at that point).

I absolutely loved the magic systems in this. It was so original for what should be probably written into the ground already but so many different ways of viewing magic even in the book itself! 5 stars for magic!

The only reason that this book is not five stars is because I feel that the writing has made it fairly inaccessible. This book was HARD to read and I was interested! But never, not once, could I just glide through the story. I know that might make it sound like I want to be lazy or something but…maybe I do. I want to be entertained and not necessarily so deeply challenged for said entertainment. And I don’t think that this book really needed to be like this.

The author seemed to just have an excessive use of a thesaurus and over complicated sentence structures. This becomes a problem even in CONTEXT of the story. When a certain language in the book is supposed to be particularly verbose and prose-y, its barely indistinguishable from the writing in the rest of the story. It didn’t stand out beyond its rhyming.
I had several lines that I would have highlighted on a regular app to show just how purple some of it was.
If I could have just sat back a little and relaxed in the moment and gotten lost in the words without having to have an ongoing brain workout for words I don’t regularly use this would be five stars. It's already pretty overwhelming with how much detail she put in, it didn’t need to be quite so difficult to just get through singular lines as well.

However, I would never tell an author how to write. Just a heads up, that this won’t really be accessible to all and maybe that is fine for them and their vision. But I think if they cut down just a little this could be a hugely popular series.

Tips for reading this: I saw a lot of reviews complaining about the months and days and gods all listed right at the beginning but don’t be overwhelmed by this. Its extra info and barely matters. When has it ever mattered if like Elizabeth Bennett met Darcy on a Tuesday in March? It doesn’t. Just like the days don’t matter here. Its just a cool detail that makes sense when a world doesn’t have our history. Same with ‘all the introduced characters that don’t matter’ - her history is like 90% jokes. Laugh at their silly death and move on. You don’t need to memorize them. Any Gods that become important are explained in the moment they do.
Final thought: I totally ship Mak and Lanie and I think I’m outta luck on that one.
Also: like all the violence trigger warnings! This is dark and brutal and definitely not YA, I hope they are not marketing it as YA. NA if anything.

Thank you to NetGalley and Rebellion publishing for this eARC in exchange for my honest review! This book will be available on April 12, 2022 if it sounds even vaguely interesting to you and you are willing to work a little then I totally recommend it!