Saskia Maarleveld is one of my favourite narrators, and I was excited to see that she narrated this book! She’s always engaging and brings life to the books she narrates.

The God of Endings was an interesting take on immortality. The main narrator sometimes reminded me of Addie from The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.

The non-linear timelines were a little confusing when I listened, but I thought this book was good overall. The characters were fine. I loved the historical fiction aspect of this book and the artist child that Collette was drawn to.. But felt like their relationship could have been better explored.

Another vampire book. Somber tone. Not as broody as Anne Rice. Well written.
Imagine being immortal... you make it through the witch-hunting days... a limitless life awaits you... decades go by... then centuries... and you... choose to do nothing. ...ok. Cool.

An exploration of what makes us human and what makes life worth living.

We follow a woman who is made immortal by her grandfather. When she's a child she looses her who family, endures unimaginable cruelty but through her 'gift' persists. The story switches easily through past and present as we drift ever closer to meeting the fabled God of Endings.

The book is long and could have benefited from some editing to tighten up the writing, but the story was compelling enough to keep me reading until the end.

Hot tip: Listen to the audiobook! We meet characters from all over the world and our narrator, Saskia Maarleveld, easily and compellingly takes on the accents and languages of each. She really added another dimension to this story I would have missed in a straight read.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for an advanced reader copy of this story.

If you’ve read any of the blurbs for this book, you know that we are following Collette, an immortal preschool teacher living in the upstate New York of the 1980s. It’s the height of the Satanic Panic and we have a Supernatural Creature teaching rich people’s toddlers, I’d call that a solid recipe for drama. Could this be a fresh and exciting take on the Lonely Immortal?

Alas, it’s just a vampire story.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good vampire story! But I have to be expecting it, and it has to be, well, good. This was like taking a sip from your cup and, instead of the exhilarating burn of McDonald’s Sprite that you expected, you have a mouthful of lukewarm tap water.

Don’t believe me? What if I told you the main character is turned prior to the Revolutionary War and, rather than following her through the changes in the western world, we just chill in the woods painting for two centuries? No industrial revolution for this lady, she’d rather hang out at an isolated cabin in Eastern Europe. The “present day” scenes aren’t any better, they’re spent at the preschool following the mundane tasks of teaching four-year-olds.

Not only is this book bland af, but everything interesting turns out to be a damaging trope of some sort. For instance, there was some asexual representation, superb! As you read, only female vampires are confirmed to be asexual, guess we just needed our heroine’s virginity intact.

Honestly, the book seems to think female purity and gender roles are really important. The main character mainly experiences happiness when she is being a good girl by following the instructions of male characters. While there are a few femme characters the MC develops relationships with, they always end in tragedy, and it is heavily implied the fault for that tragedy lies in their immoral behaviors. There’s also some weird implications about motherhood and living a fulfilling life.

“Ok,” you say, “So it’s a bit misogynistic. The patriarchy influences most media, that doesn’t make it a bad book.”

*side eye*

Did I mention it’s also racist? Because of course it is! Holland seems to have been attempting some sort of racist royal flush. We’ve got the Magical Romani and Dangerous Brown Guy, (they’re twins), a Negro Caretaker, the Magical Negress, and an Ambiguous Brown Orphan. None of these characters have personalities beyond advancing the plot or teaching Collette a life lesson. Most of them die.

Look, I hated this book. It was nothing like what was described, an interesting setup was completely wasted, and the suspense ends at about ⅔ of the way through. Shout out to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the advanced copy though, the narrator was superb!

This was so tense! I loved the alternating timelines that all connect in the end. The narrator's voice is wonderful and she does an amazing job at differentiating between the two timelines but with the same character.

What a great book. I was immediately invested and wanting to know everything about Anna/Collette's life. The chapters alternate between 1984 and the 1800's when Anna was given immortality by her grandfather. While trying to navigate her life in 1984, you learn about her deepest desires and biggest regrets throughout her life. I was sad when the book ended. Such a lovely story and will definitely read more of this author as she writes more books.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jacqueline Holland and MacMillan Audio for this advanced audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC audiobook.

My initial draw to this book was from the title. There’s something very compelling about a book called The God of Endings. It became a mystery I wanted to solve. What was the god of endings? I needed to know this book.

The story flips from the main characters present and her past of how she became a vampire. Both timelines come together and flow really well. The MCs present timeline was very interesting, and I found myself wanting to know where her story was going. She seemed to face so trials while trying to live a quiet life at the best of her abilities. Outside forces always seem to catch up with her though.

There are a few more details I would have liked to have in this story but I enjoyed the book. The God of Ending seems to be this mysterious outside force we don’t know much about but dictates the whole story. I just didn’t really understand how this force decided outcomes. Do all this gods endings become bad or is there good endings?

I'm going to keep this short. I DNFd this at chapter 16 or 17.

If you're expecting to read a story about a vampire art teacher in 1984, be aware that only a portion of the story takes place in 1984.

I was not interested im the other time periods and half the time things weren't clear.

For example, she becomes a vampire as a child, but still grows into an adult? And then stops aging . It's messy.

However, the author's writing style is impressive, but I don't feel like the story presented fully matches up with the blurb


Once again, the author is extremely talented, but I think she needs to work on clarity. I think I would've enjoyed this more if the story was majority I think I would've enjoyed this story more if it was majority focused on a 1984 art teacher, but it isnt.

It’s 1984, and Collette is an artist who runs an elite fine arts school in upstate New York for young children. But her real name is Ana and she’s been alive for centuries, enduring the loneliness and constant turmoil she feels. Although she is normally quite private, she finds herself being drawn into the life of one of her students who is from a troubled home. At the same time, she feels her hunger growing more than it ever has before. But the more she becomes involved, the more she wonders if she’s made the right decision.

The story is told through a non-linear timeline; most chapters consist of a large portion of Ana’s history and early life, while also having a small part of her current life (the primary plot). I honestly couldn’t decide if I liked this or not. Having such detailed history of hers incorporated made it much easier to understand why she made the choices she did and how she ended up where she was, as well as providing interesting information about the times she’d lived through. However, it drastically slowed down the primary plot and even made it difficult to keep track of exactly who was doing what. I think this story would have been better told in a linear fashion, or at least to have significantly trimmed down the sections of Ana’s history.

While the characters were fine, I didn’t find myself drawn to any of them. They were written well enough to keep the story enjoyable, but not well enough for me to connect with them or become completely immersed in their stories. This was unfortunately true for Ana as well; this may be related to the fact that we spent so much time in her past. However, I did enjoy the author’s writing style overall as well as how well the settings were described and portrayed.

There were a few other things that detracted from my enjoyment of the work. The main character experienced an unexplained and unwanted change in her feelings of hunger and the amount she needed to eat, which should have created palpable tension and emotion. Instead, it was written about in a way that felt detached from the plot and added no sense of urgency. There were also some cases of plot-induced stupidity: she had the chance to ask about this change from someone much more experienced but “forgot” to; another example was that I thought of several simple ways she could have avoided issues relating to finding steady sources of blood for feeding, but instead she had to resort to illegal/dangerous actions.

I did enjoy this read overall and recommend it to those who like dual timelines with vampirism and historical fiction incorporated. My thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for allowing me to read this work, which will be published 7 March 2023. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I'm not sure how to describe this novel honestly. It deals with heavy themes such as life and death and the complexity of human nature. It's like The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, but Addie LaRue is the YA version and The God of Endings is the grownup version.

I'm a fan of depressing novels, so I ended up liking this even though it was really long. I like how the novel's concept of vampires is closer to Bram Stoker's Dracula and not the typical modern, glammy vampire. The writing is easy to follow and the narrator, Saskia Maarleveld, is excellent. The author's tone of voice is perfect for this type of narrative.

But I think the novel could've had some scenes edited out. It's a great debut for a new author, but I felt that it was unnecessarily long. Some scenes could've been summed up more succinctly. The MC is very prone to long musings on life and human behavior, which is great as a philosophical study, but plot-wise it really drags.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for this audio arc.

Collette LeSange is a solitary private preschool teacher and artist with a dangerous secret -- the immortal kind. Her long and storied life is explored alongside a thrilling storyline about a student,, Max, whom she has grown exceptionally fond of. We go through isolation, wars, grief, and love with Collette all while anticipating the thrilling conclusion to her and Max's story.
This beautifully-debut novel was many things at once: historical fiction, paranormal fiction, thriller, tragedy, and horror. The writing was immersive and at times poetic, and the wonderful narration by Maarleveld just heightened the overall feel of the words.

God of Endings is a slow build to a strong ending. Fortunately, the main character is one the reader can empathize with, and her relationships with Leo in the present and others in the past, so a lack of a strong goal can be tolerated.

Where the novel fell short for me was that Collette fears the loss of others and any joy or happiness she has, so she separates herself from others, yet it doesn’t feel so terrible. We don’t get to know others well from her past that she loses so we don’t feel the loss. She talks of being burdened by her immorality but I didn’t feel that as a reader. Only in the final third of the novel did I connect with her struggle.

This was a really interesting story about an unwilling vampire woman following the centuries of her life. I loved the way it humanized her experience and didn't shy away from making characters unlikeable. It was written very beautifully, and it does a great job of tying fantasy and history in a way I think many will really enjoy.

Thank you Netgalley for providing a digital ARC.

I was given a chance to listen to The God of Endings. I really enjoyed the narrator. The story was beautifully told and I loved being able to watch Anna find her will to live.



Thanks NetGalley for the listen!

Having lived a hundred lives, Anna, now Collette has made a yet another life for herself. While teaching children at her French school in New York, she encounters a troubled set of parents with an even more troubled child. Collette soon finds that taking on this young boy and his family and navigating her appetite for blood, which is growing larger by the day, is more than she bargained for. On top of that she is blacking out at night and disturbing events begin happening around town, Could she be to blame?

I would categorize The God of Endings, as a domestic, historical fiction, fantasy. If that isn't a thing, it is now. Slow placed and where lacking in action it makes up for it in storytelling, The God of Endings is unlike any other vampire story you will ever read. Told from two points of view, past and present, The God of Endings, takes us on a journey of love, loss, war, grief, and self awareness and asks the age old question. Is there purpose in this life, no matter the length, and is it really worth living?

I will be the first to admit I am not a big fan of anything historical, fact or fiction but the story here grabbed a hold of me and didn't let go. I really enjoyed Jacqueline's writing style and story telling abilities. Twisting together a heartbreaking beginning and an endless future full of hope, Jacqueline created a story I will not soon forget and most importantly one that left me wanting more.

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for my advanced copy of this book. These thoughts and opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed this book a lot. The narrator is one of my favorites so that’s always a plus and the book really surprised me with how much I liked it. It’s a vampire book but about as far away from every other vampire book I’ve ever read. I enjoyed that the book was about how hard it would be to be an immortal being among mortal people and how sad it would be to realize how transient and fleeting all of life is when you have to go on living when everyone around you that you love dies. I liked to that there wasn’t really any romance just really interesting relationships that she develops with people through time. I’d definitely recommend this one whether or not you like vampire books.

A vampire story that humanizes the vampire? That's the premise of this book and it was such a great read. We follow's Collette from before her transition to a vampire and shows us how she learns to adjust. We see her try to make a life - a safe life - around the world and also try to learn more about what she is and what it means. This was beautifully done. Holland has made Collette a person not a monster in a way I've never seen before. I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys books about what makes humans human even if they aren't into vampire stories.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

I received advance access to this audiobook from NetGalley.com in exchange for an honest and candid review.

I found this to be an engrossing novel. While the main character is technically a vampire, the story loses the traditional creature-of-the-night, soulless-villain troops and instead uses the backdrop of immortality to explore themes of the risks we take in committing to those we love, knowing that we will experience painful losses, and how to seek and create meaning in a life well lived.

The book is structured around a split timeline, alternating between the protagonist's current life as Collette, the upscale private preschool headmistress and various points in her long personal history, struggling with different identities at different periods in time.

The drama she faces during the modern era, with one of her pupils and his troubled family, along with a seeming confluence of cosmically significant signs, has Collette moving toward some inevitable destination, and she struggles to find the courage to face it.

I found the resolution satisfying and was glad for the journey. Also, the narrator's voice is rich and textured, and beautiful to listen to. She embodies Collette perfectly and gives great character to the book as a whole.

An interesting story full of twists, turns, fun characters and overall a book I would consider reading time and time again.

If you’re looking for a book with a subtle degree of horror and a healthy dose of foreboding with a niggling sense of the nightmarish, The God of Endings is for you. Holland brings to the table a sophistication of plot and narrative I haven’t seen in a while with a blended genre book. Collette’s tale unfurls itself in equal parts historical fantasy, horror, mystery, thriller, and paranormal with a measure of literary fiction thrown in. I was engrossed as soon as I hit the play button and couldn’t stop until the story was over. I highly recommend this book for those who like a scary read with only a glossing of grotesque and not an over abundant amount of descriptive gore.

Turned into a vampire at a young age by her grandfather, Collette née Anja (or Anna?) now finds herself working with young children—perhaps to relive continuously that which she was robbed of in her own youth. She is headmistress of a French preschool with only the children who will create the least amount of problems—until she finds herself intrigued and fascinated with the artistic talent of a young boy named Leo, whose parents are having serious issues. Against her better judgment, she admits Leo to her school and has to pay the price of meddling in the young boy’s affairs, though she has vowed to be only a passive member of society.

The expert sense of foreboding Holland expresses partly through the ever-present God of Endings, Czernobog (alternately spelled as Chernobog, Tchernobog, or Černobog—as this was an audiobook, I am not sure of the spelling in the book), whom Collette feels the presence of throughout the book. As this God of Endings chases Collette all over the world, readers catch glimpses of his presence in her life experiences from the time of her beginning until the present day in this book, which is the 20th Century. The rest of the suspense and, quite frankly in my experience, anxiety, comes in the form of how the reader imagines Collette’s current state of living with her ever-increasing and insatiable hunger will play out as she tries desperately to quell the blood urge while also teaching small children. Can she control herself? Well, you’ll have to read and find out.

While the build up to the end is amazingly propulsive and a completely nail-biting experience, I felt the end fizzled just a tad. Not enough for me to rate it below 4 stars, though.

Saskia Maarleveld narrates this with skill I rarely find in a narrator. Perfect execution of different voices for different characters—there are many—and absolutely mesmerizing. This is a read that I highly recommend experiencing through audio if possible.

My thanks to NetGalley for the ALC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.