Reviews with content warning for Death - Voyage of the Damned

Reviews tagging 'Death'

Voyage of the Damned by Frances White

52 reviews

bibliomania_express's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Today was the May long weekend here in Canada, and the weather has been warm and sunny. I went to a nearby park to read and enjoy the sunshine, and ended up reading my whole book.

Voyage of the Damned by Frances White is a sharp, quick-paced murder mystery that was everything I hoped it would be. Twelve Blesseds, each representing a province of the United Empire of Concordia, are on a voyage to the sacred mountain. Except Dee isn't Blessed - he's hiding his lack of power to protect his province. Then Dee has bigger things to worry about as one by one the Blesseds are murdered. Dee will have to figure out who the murderer is and what's going on before he ends up dead.

I had such a great time with this book. It has some great character work, a twisty mystery, an interesting magic system, and fantastic representation of different races, sexualities, body types, and disabilities. It also deals with classism, xenophobia, prejudice, religious bigotry, self-esteem, and the economics of control. Along with grief, love, family, found family, and corruption. Just a whole lot of stuff packed into an isolated, closed circle murder mystery on a boat.

Dee was a great protagonist and it was fun to follow him through his resentment and self-loathing at the lie foisted upon him to finding his true self and working his way through the clues. Dee is loud, proud of his big body, funny while using humour as deflection, and in many ways his idgaf nature is what saves the day. There's also a romance element in this book, which went some unexpected ways a few times.

I liked how the Blessings were tied into the plot, and how the story unravelled by revealing bits about each character and their pasts. It did get a bit confusing that characters had names but were also called their province's animal name.

I did guess some elements of the solution, but not all of it. I'm not sure if I would class this as a fair play mystery since some of the clues come rather late and deal a lot with the politics and secrets there wouldn't be a way of knowing.

I'd have more to say, but it would all be spoilers, so I'll leave it there.

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beckisnotonfire's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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emmaggedon's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

Squealing and kicking my feet at this fantasy murder mystery that had It All!
✅ Magic
✅ A protagonist who just wins you over instantly
✅ Brutal scenes but sparingly
✅ Important messages told well
✅ BUCKETS OF SEXUAL TENSION

Just, WONDERFUL. I haven’t done a “one more chapter, won’t do anything else until the book is finished” in a WHILE!!! More Cross Genre PLEASE I’m FREAKING OUT!! For something that could easily have been YA, I think it works so beautifully as an adult novel, and it does not shy away from being one.

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e_read_books's review against another edition

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3.75

A really well thought out murder mystery considering there were 12 characters each with pretty different magical abilities to keep track of over 12 days in a fairly large ship. There were multiple equally plausible suspects to keep the reader guessing and as such I couldn't be truly surprised when the killer was revealed but the motives and plans still had some unexpected twists.

I was worried in the first couple of chapters that Dee would be too annoying of a character for me to follow. I'll admit his humour did not always land for me, but his true depth is quickly revealed to us and he ended up being a really compelling character and a pretty good detective. I absolutely loved his relationship with little Grasshopper (truly Adorable Level 5/5).

Lowering the score for me is I didn't quite jive with some of the humour and also the conclusion, though it fits well with Dee's character arc. I'm just never going to prefer

Dee becoming the new Emporer "ruling the right way" over abolishing the system altogether. Though there was mention of independence later down the line

. However, the meat of the story i.e. the murder mystery was a great fun time and the differing character dynamics between the 12 heirs created plenty of opportunity for great dialogue scenes with lots of character.

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kpturner90's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Weird and different in the best way! This book was highly creative and SO MUCH fun while keeping me guessing to the end. At one point, I thought I'd figured out the killer, only to be proven so very wrong. Dee is the kind of character that you feel a deep, personal connection with, almost like he's your real-life best friend. His sincerity and I-don't-give-a-damn attitude make you want someone like him in your life. I can't wait to see what Frances White comes up with next!

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julalbert56's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I am so conflicted about this book. On one hand, the characters (especially grasshopper) were so fun to follow and the mystery had me hooked. On the other hand, I was really not vibing with the worldbuilding or the main romance.

Why is Cordelia described as conventionally attractive? Shouldn’t the Dragon blessed be the “pinacle” of beauty? It also rubbed me the wrong way how Dee fell in love with Wyatt literally days after the “love of his life” was murdered. I know the author tried to reason that away with the Ravi shapeshifting twist but it still didn’t sit right with me. I also didn’t love Ravi as a character, the soft, kindhearted version of him from Dee’s childhood just felt so disconnected to the person who could murder/be complicit in the murder of innocents. I’m glad he ultimately gave the power to Dee or I would have really disliked him.

The writing, though entertaining, also took some getting used to with the amount of curse words/sex jokes. I’m not prudish but I have a limit lol. But anyway, despite those issues the book wasn’t boring, and there was a lot of well implemented diversity which I appreciated.

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shesreadingagain_'s review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I really enjoyed this read. I did not expect to love it as much as I did. This book gave me such a warm feeling while also keeping me guessing the entire time who the murderer was.

The ending was a massive surprise to me. I did not see that coming at all.

I cannot recommend this enough.

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