Thank you to Netgalley and Sapere Books for providing a free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Omens of Death has a promising and exciting premise at first glance: a brother-sister duo investigate crimes in late 15th century Rome, under the watchful eye of the Borgia pope. As a lover of Renaissance Italy and a good murder mystery, I was immediately drawn to this, especially as it's the first book in a series.

However, I ended up DNF'ing less than 100 pages in. While the concept of the book is incredibly interesting, the execution of it falls flat. Cristina and Domenico are one-dimensional and boring, and make no sense within their setting. Cristina feels like a female and cheaper version of Sherlock Holmes with her cold, intellectual behavior and penchant for deductive reasoning based on little to no actual evidence. Meanwhile, Domenico is supposed to be a young soldier who made a rapid rise in the ranks of the Vatican army but is entirely dependent on his right hand Gilo's legwork and his sister's brains. None of the sidecharacters feel real or believable, even those that are actual historical characters, such as Rodrigo Borgia or Giuliano della Rovere. They seem to be a desperate attempt to make the setting feel more historical than it actually is.

Because the atmosphere in this book is definitely not 15th century Rome. While descriptions are plentiful and get some stuff right, the way the characters behave and move through the setting feels far too modern. The entire story is written as if the author had a basic knowledge of the look of Renaissance Rome, but did little research on the actual lives of the people during this time. The dialogue is far too casual and modern, the behavior of both Domenico and Cristina is utterly unrealistic and the methods they use to solve the mystery at the heart of the story feel plucked out of a Victorian detective novel. Every chapter, it became harder to focus on the actual plot because it was so hard to believe the setting and allow it to transport me into the story.

Speaking of chapters, there are far too many. The ebook stands at about 270 pages and yet there is a total of 62 (!) chapters. That's about 4,5 pages per chapter. While short chapters are fun sometimes and can really push the story forward, the shortness of the chapters in Omens of Death became annoying after the first 50 pages. Nearly every scene became a separate chapter, which kept interrupting the flow of the story and made every scene feel rushed and disconnected from the ones that came before and after.

To summarise: Omens of Death had a lot of potential, but didn't actually do anything with it.

A great start to a new series. The setting is a nice change of pace being set in the late 15th century Rome. There is both murder and intrigue as you would expect. Cristina is a feisty character and both she and her brother Dominic are likeable. Perhaps the methods used are a little more modern that might have been available in this time but I didn't find this affected the story for me. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Very intriguing book of historical fiction. From the infamous Borgia's to a strong heroine, politics and murder and mystery, this was an overall engaging read. Some of the historical references I'm not sure on the accuracy, or if a woman really could have had as strong a role as this heroine does, but if you leave that behind and just look for an engaging story (not how realistic it is), this is a good read.

Very interesting setting and premise. I liked the set up at the beginning. Didn't love the prose, I'm afraid, but that is a matter of taste.

An interesting plot (albeit confusing at times) set in Rome at the tail-end of the 15th century during the tumultuous reign of the Borgia pope Alexander VI with lots of dubious twists and turns, plenty of bloody and violent murderous shenanigans and a terrific cast of exquisitely drawn characters but the various criminal investigations felt too contemporary to my taste and hard to believe for a murder mystery set during the early years of the Renaissance...

So I will give it the benefice of the doubt for the time being and wait for the next installment before letting my judgement become final...

Many thanks to Sapere Books and Netgalley for this ARC.

A good plot! However what disturbed me in this story is that I could not really immerse myself in the time period. Probably because of too many parallels between our modern days and the XVIth century: the plot itself (terrorism), the methods of investigating (very modern) reminded me too much of our current times. Even the writing style and vocabulary did not fit the period covered by this novel, in my opinion. I still wanted to read up to the end, as the plot was still gripping. I am not sure though whether I want to read more books by this author. Indeed, when I read historical fiction, I enjoy to dive in these past days and forget about our modern times.
I received a complimentary ARC of this novel from NetGalley and I am leaving voluntarily an honest review.