I absolutely LOVED this book!
✔️hella gorgeous cover
✔️racially diverse cast
✔️main character is person of colour
✔️diverse sexual orientation
✔️well written character diversity

SARAH Glenn Marsh's writing was perfect. it gave a couple hints so the reader could think "oh, I wonder if..." and then it would be confirmed or denied right away. when books leave these "bread crumbs" that are actually massive cement blocks for chapters and chapters, it almost feels like they are insulting my intelligence. Marsh seems to want you to understand and follow the plot with that sense of caution and suspicion.

There were a couple things I wanted more fleshed out but they were very minimal. I thought more of an explanation about the god Vaia would've helped give me a better sense of the climate where the book takes place. I think there should've been more of an explanation of Hadrien's actions at the end. How he pulled what he did was explained but

no real reason that would justify killing your family.

I really liked the romance in this book. They aren't the entire main plot and they aren't toxic. the romance helps each character grow and have a support system. I need more books with LGBTQ+ diversity to be written like this. There is a gay relationship, a bisexual relationship and a lesbian relationship but it's no big deal. It's great that authors are diversifying their characters but I don't particularly like when they have an LGBTQ character in a fantasy or sci-fi and it feels like the author is screaming "LOOK! THERES AN LGBTQ CHARACTER! IM DIVERSE!" Similarly, the race of the characters is mentioned when they are introduced and that's it. Diversity is presented as the norm and I loved that.

The author did an amazing job writing the grief in this book. So often, there's fantasies where "the love of my life" dies and they go on one bender and then just move on while I'm here being like "wow. you got over the love of your life being betrayed and murdered awfully fast." Odessa's grief is believable and relatable and her actions make sense. Her use of substances to cope is sad but made me better understand and grow with her character as well as help me get invested in the feelings and relationship she had with Evander.

Considering the short length of the book, I think the author did a fantastic job of world, magic and character building. There's very few good standalone fantasies with a memorable world and structure...this is one of them (UPDATE: it looks like its a series now). The necromancy wasn't too simple nor was it unnecessary complicated. There's structure to the Deadlands and the transportation to and from it that is followed and logical.

I ship Odessa and Meredy so hard!