A review by trin
Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt

4.0

Really lovely fairytale-type YA novel that combines elements of Scheherazade’s story with ruminations about living and dying. Keturah gets lost in the woods and when Death arrives for her, she enchants him with a love story that wins her an extra day of life—and a possible reprieve if she can, in that time, find her true love. Leavitt doesn’t let her tale take the obvious route, and I gobbled it up, very naughtily delaying necessary errands and chores so I could finish it. I wasn’t quite convinced by the ending—possibly because the novel’s prologue seems to set up another, contradictory conclusion; I think the book would have been better without it. But besides that and my minor annoyance with Leavitt’s occasional tendency to slip into ill-placed ’twases and ’tises, I thought this was wonderful