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shaylee_n_20's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Death, and Death of parent
Moderate: Medical trauma and Classism
Minor: Sexism, Fire/Fire injury, Infertility, Misogyny, and Infidelity
giulianalb99's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
3,5⭐️
⚠️THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS⚠️
The book is quite good and it's super well written, but it has parts that don't quite convince me. It's very slow, and it's only at the end that everything gets tense. I loved how the author writes, however its true that there were parts in which I was bored.
I was so sure I was going to give this book 4 stars, but it was very predictable and I didn’t like the fact that Percy was the one behind everything…
The romance was good, but I expected more. Of course, there’s a toxic relationship between the MC and Death (I don’t know why authors LOVE to write about toxic relationships), and the tension between each other is great, but since the very beginning I knew who Death was…
⚠️THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS⚠️
The book is quite good and it's super well written, but it has parts that don't quite convince me. It's very slow, and it's only at the end that everything gets tense. I loved how the author writes, however its true that there were parts in which I was bored.
I was so sure I was going to give this book 4 stars, but it was very predictable and I didn’t like the fact that Percy was the one behind everything…
The romance was good, but I expected more. Of course, there’s a toxic relationship between the MC and Death (I don’t know why authors LOVE to write about toxic relationships), and the tension between each other is great, but since the very beginning I knew who Death was…
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Death of parent, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, and Vomit
bookcaptivated's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Murder, and Body horror
Moderate: Misogyny, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol
Minor: Grief, Vomit, Sexual content, and Infertility
kbairbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This was so much fun! A murder mystery that wasn’t scary?? I love it! Dark, and at times creepy, but filled with love and family and so much fun. And that ending?! Oh my gosh. I loved the ending so freaking much. I can’t wait for Foxglove!! Although I thought for a bit maybe book two would focus on the mystery of her origin? But oof I seriously loved how it ended and all the final ‘battle scenes’ if you will. Mysterious, deadly, and oh so good.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content, Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Terminal illness, Blood, Vomit, Death, Murder, Death of parent, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Alcohol and Sexual content
blewballoon's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Overall this was good. I enjoyed the spooky murder mystery with ghosts. I liked death as a character and would have been obsessed with his relationship with Signa as a teenager, but as an adult I worry about things like a huge age gap and lack of common ground. I wish we had gotten more of Signa using her unusual abilities but I can understand why they needed to be limited. There were plenty of red herrings with the murder mystery, so it wasn't too easy for the reader to solve. I do wish this wasn't a series, I would have preferred to have everything wrapped up at the end like it was going to be, before the cliffhanger happened. But I could see that the author wanted to do more with the characters that had been set up. I'm not sure if I'll read any sequels. This book sort of reminded me of The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause, although the plots and setting are very different.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content, Death, Murder, Death of parent, Vomit, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Chronic illness, Self harm, and Misogyny
faithwingo's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Vomit and Murder
Moderate: Misogyny and Grief
pookiee's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Grief, Death, Misogyny, and Sexism
Moderate: Addiction, Sexual content, Animal death, Vomit, and Adult/minor relationship
Minor: Pedophilia and Homophobia
maeverose's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
2.75
I had to edit this review because my feelings changed a lot in hindsight.
TL;DR: Loved the beginning, meh towards the end. Love the atmosphere, the secret garden vibes. This is new adult not YA. The romance was highly problematic.
The first half of this book was an easy 5 stars, but the second half was more of a 3 at best. (And in hindsight, the problematic romance just kinda tainted the whole book…)
🖤 🖤 🖤
The thing I loved the most was the atmosphere and writing. The descriptions in this book are so vivid and atmospheric I could clearly picture everything in my mind. I want to be in this world. I love immersive writing, especially in a gothic book, it’s one of the number one things I look for and this definitely delivers on that.
I loved the secret garden vibes. I don’t know if it was intentional but this definitely feels like a gothic retelling almost of the secret garden. Lots of similarities.
💔 💔 💔
I’m very picky with mortal x immortal pairings because they often feel icky. This one did. Without spoilers, Death met her as a two month old baby and kept an eye on her from then until she was 19, when the book takes place. and he knew from a vision that he had when she was a baby that they would get together when she was an adult…. Yeah. That aside, my original thoughts on the romance before realizing how messed up it was: it feels very much like what you’d expect from YA in that Signa is very quick to catch feelings despite the fact she hated the love interest in the beginning. I didn’t feel their chemistry because Signa didn’t really get to know Death or spend much time with him. Her attraction to him was really only physical.
Signa is so focused on men the entire book when she’s supposed to be focused on saving someone’s life, something that’s incredibly urgent. There was a love triangle that while reading I felt was entirely unnecessary and just took up space in the book that should’ve focused on the actual plot.
Another thing about the romance is that it gets a bit steamier than I would say is appropriate for YA. There’s an on page sex scene that’s somewhat explicit, and besides that Signa is just very horny throughout the book. I would categorize this as new adult, not young adult. I feel like authors forget that the target age range of YA is 12-17. I would not give this to anyone younger than 16, personally.
Signa is very obsessed with being a ‘proper lady’ throughout most of the book and I found those parts to be very annoying. If she had grown out of that mindset earlier I wouldn’t have minded it so much because it does make sense given the time period and her high class status that she’d care about that, but it was overdone imo.
While I loved the writing in the first half, after that it started to feel overwritten and like it was trying too hard to be poetic at certain parts. It started to drag on a bit as well and was a bit repetitive at times. Kinda felt like the author wrote the book in order and got burnt out towards the end.
About the end reveal of who did it: I didn’t understand why Percy continued to poison Lillian when it didn’t kill her the first time… if it was an accident and she survived he could’ve just waited for it to leave her system… It didn’t make sense to me.
A very subjective issue: I just don’t like YA. Even though this has more adult themes it’s still written like YA. The main character is very naive (understandably so, but still), she’s so focused on boys instead of the very pressing situation going on, and there’s unnecessary petty drama with some of the other girls her age. I feel like these are common tropes in YA. Maybe it’s just because I’m an adult and don’t like those things but I remember disliking those things when I was a teenager as well so… I just would’ve preferred if this had been written as adult and the characters were more mature and less easily distracted by cute men.
TL;DR: Loved the beginning, meh towards the end. Love the atmosphere, the secret garden vibes. This is new adult not YA. The romance was highly problematic.
The first half of this book was an easy 5 stars, but the second half was more of a 3 at best. (And in hindsight, the problematic romance just kinda tainted the whole book…)
🖤 🖤 🖤
The thing I loved the most was the atmosphere and writing. The descriptions in this book are so vivid and atmospheric I could clearly picture everything in my mind. I want to be in this world. I love immersive writing, especially in a gothic book, it’s one of the number one things I look for and this definitely delivers on that.
I loved the secret garden vibes. I don’t know if it was intentional but this definitely feels like a gothic retelling almost of the secret garden. Lots of similarities.
💔 💔 💔
I’m very picky with mortal x immortal pairings because they often feel icky. This one did. Without spoilers, Death met her as a two month old baby and kept an eye on her from then until she was 19, when the book takes place.
Signa is so focused on men the entire book when she’s supposed to be focused on saving someone’s life, something that’s incredibly urgent. There was a love triangle that while reading I felt was entirely unnecessary and just took up space in the book that should’ve focused on the actual plot.
Another thing about the romance is that it gets a bit steamier than I would say is appropriate for YA. There’s an on page sex scene that’s somewhat explicit, and besides that Signa is just very horny throughout the book. I would categorize this as new adult, not young adult. I feel like authors forget that the target age range of YA is 12-17. I would not give this to anyone younger than 16, personally.
Signa is very obsessed with being a ‘proper lady’ throughout most of the book and I found those parts to be very annoying. If she had grown out of that mindset earlier I wouldn’t have minded it so much because it does make sense given the time period and her high class status that she’d care about that, but it was overdone imo.
While I loved the writing in the first half, after that it started to feel overwritten and like it was trying too hard to be poetic at certain parts. It started to drag on a bit as well and was a bit repetitive at times. Kinda felt like the author wrote the book in order and got burnt out towards the end.
About the end reveal of who did it:
A very subjective issue: I just don’t like YA. Even though this has more adult themes it’s still written like YA. The main character is very naive (understandably so, but still), she’s so focused on boys instead of the very pressing situation going on, and there’s unnecessary petty drama with some of the other girls her age. I feel like these are common tropes in YA. Maybe it’s just because I’m an adult and don’t like those things but I remember disliking those things when I was a teenager as well so… I just would’ve preferred if this had been written as adult and the characters were more mature and less easily distracted by cute men.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Murder, and Grief
Moderate: Blood, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Sexual content, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Self harm, Terminal illness, and Vomit
Minor: Suicide attempt and Religious bigotry
Graphic: poisoning Moderate: description of a broken neck Minor: an implication that having a lot of sexual partners leads to ‘diseases’lizgriffinwords's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Enjoyable regency/Victorian YA romance with a murder mystery twist! While (in my personal opinion) it didn’t quite live up to the “Bridgerton meets Knives Out” premise and a few plot elements felt either far-fetched or coincidental, I’m looking forward to the sequel. Signa is surprisingly stable considering her status as an orphan passed between family members who keep dying, and the tie she feels with Death was teased out in a satisfactory slow burn.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Minor: Misogyny, Classism, and Murder
soniajoy98's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Alcohol, Vomit, Body horror, Death of parent, Misogyny, Chronic illness, Death, and Murder
Moderate: Sexual content, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Eating disorder
Minor: Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Infidelity, and Alcoholism