Dark Fantasy

I Am Made of Death Review

Book: I Am Made of Death
Author: Kelly Andrew
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Year: 2025
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Following the death of his father, Thomas Walsh had to grow up quickly, taking on odd jobs to help pay his gravely ill mother’s medical bills. When he’s offered a highly paid position as an interpreter for an heiress who exclusively signs, Thomas – the hearing child of a Deaf adult – jumps at the opportunity.
But the job is not without its challenges.
A selective-mute, Vivienne Farrow hasn’t said a word in years – not since going missing in Red Rock Canyon when she was four years old. No one knows quite what happened to her out in the dark. They only know that the sound of her voice is now as deadly as a poison. Anyone who hears her speak suffers a horrible death.
Vivienne is desperate for a way to regain control of bother her voice and her body. Because the face staring out of the mirror isn’t hers. It’s something with teeth.
Thankfully, she’s finally found someone who claims to be able to perform a surgical exorcism. She just needs to find a way to get rid of Thomas first. But Thomas can’t afford to walk away, nor is he willing to abandon the mysterious girl he’s falling for, no matter what dark powers threaten to swallow them both whole.”

Review : I Am Made of Death was the perfect antidote for both the book hole I found myself in after finishing The Devils and the disgust I felt over my last unfortunate one star review copy, Anji Kills a King. I needed something to grip me, and I Am Made of Death (IAMOD) did just that. I started and finished IAMOD in just under 48 hours, and had I just a tiny bit more free time available, I would have cut that time way down. Andrew created an absolute page turning, unputdownable read and I am eternally grateful for that.

As a child, Andrew lost her hearing at just 4 years old and it becomes evident throughout this book that Andrew has woven her own story into this dark fantasy, frankly, the personal connection, both to her own hearing loss and to her marriage with a Hearing individual, makes for a super compelling read. Told from the alternating perspectives of both Thomas, 18 year old interpreter for Vivienne Farrow, paid in unspeakably large sums of money by her step-father, Philip, and Vivienne, Thomas’ peer and wealthy heiress to Philip’s fortune who has remained largely unspeaking for most of her adult life. Following a tragic accident in the desert while a toddler, Vivienne has had the uncanny ability to kill with just the sound of her voice, no words necessary. Because of this unfortunate ability, Vivienne has mostly locked herself away, ashamed, afraid of her own voice, and more than anything, afraid of the monster she sees in the mirror. Both metaphor and reality, Vivienne is not merely the body from which a killer voice emerges, but the host to a parasitic demon; a demon who saved her life as a toddler, who continues to save her life as an adult, but for whom the price of existence is murder.

We enter IAMOD to find Vivienne mid-way into the process of entrapping a medical student into performing a highly risky procedure in which he will attempt to surgically remove the supernatural parasite from her body. Unfortunately, Thomas’ ever present self, and how little he knows or understands about the situation, stands between Vivienne and release from the creature who plagues her body and soul. *Spoilers Ahead!* Through the course of the book, told in three parts, we see an ever-diminishing gap between Vivienne’s hatred of Thomas and Thomas’ confusion over Vivienne’s situation. Andrew has written such a perfect foray into the sweetness of first love, it felt both intense and silly all at the same time, I found their quasi-friendship turned love so palpable and enjoyable. Beyond the slow growing love between Thomas and Vivienne, we also find a whole world of occult and magic intermingled with the world of high-stakes finance, law, and even medicine – it makes the somewhat dizzying world Andrew has created feel like maybe, just maybe, it could be part of our world.

Where things took a stumble, however, is in the telling. I can’t get a grasp on whether IAMOD is going to be the first in a series or whether it’s a planned stand-alone novel and that determines how I feel things were wrapped up and explained. If, as I hope, IAMOD is the first in a series, I think Andrew left plenty of room for questions to eventually be resolved and cleared up in a second, or even third, book. There were messy threads left incomplete by the time it was all said and done and as I closed the book I found I had more questions than answers. If this is to be a stand-alone novel, Andrew could have done a much neater job of tying up loose ends and that’s where I struggle with the final rating – there are too many things that went unsaid and too much that needed to be addressed for this to be the end. It’s possible this will be a one-off, but I think that would do a disservice to the characters Andrew has begun to built and a disservice to the broader aspects of the story that were never fully resolved. While IAMOD doesn’t end on a cliffhanger, it almost might as well with how many loose threads Andrew left behind and that’s why I feel this must be the introduction to a bigger world yet to be revealed through a sequel. I guess it’s yet to be seen! Either way, the loose ends as they were, this book was still so compelling, so well written, and so enjoyable that I had no choice but to give it 4 out of 5 stars. I think you’ll understand why when you read it.

Advice : If you enjoy a nail biter, enemies to lovers, dark fantasy, or a sweet first love story, this will definitely be for you!

The Devils Review

Book: The Devils
Author: Joe Abercrombie
Publisher: Tor Books
Year: 2025
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Holy City, where he is certain a commendation and a divine assignment await him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters. The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends.
Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before hi, it’s a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side.”

Review : Weighing in at a whopping total of 547 pages (in the advanced copy), before I’d cracked the spine I assumed The Devils would be slow-going, what I didn’t account for was my own reluctance to finish the book. Joe Abercrombie has crafted one of the single most enjoyable books I’ve had the pleasure to read in longer than I can remember; The Devils was perfection, could I have given it more than 5 stars, I would (being that it’s my own rating system is completely beside the point…I believe Brother Diaz would agree that some things benefit from structure). Abercrombie had me from the word ensorcelment and he didn’t let go until the final word on page 547. There’s a massive book-shaped hole in my life and, full disclosure, I will be filling it with additional Joe Abercrombie works, for surely they are just as excellent as this.

Told through the jumping narration of multiple, though not all, characters, The Devils spans, what I can only assume is, a fairly short amount of time but no shortage of adventure, daring feats, bloody scenes, laugh-out-loud funny dialogue, and is capped off with a dash of romance. Set in a world that feels juuuuuust a little too familiar, Abercrombie has crafted an ingenious fantasy novel that needed so little extra explanation that an entirely new world would beg from a reader, it felt like I was right at home. In a world separated by bickering factions of the church – one lead by a ten-year-old girl as the Pope, the other by a Patriarch, one featuring a wheel, the other a circle – not only was the geography near enough to our world that any differences only served to make me laugh, the morality of the world he’s created feels eerily similar, if not absolutely pointed. We begin The Devils by finding one Brother Diaz, a monk in the service of the Pope, being granted a new post : leader of the Church of Holy Expediency. In a world where the greatest threat to humankind comes in the form of Elf invasion, the church is determined to heal the rift between East and West factions in order to build a solid foundation against humankind’s mortal enemy, who, by the way, is overdue for an invasion that would likely be met with failure rather than success in battle. The Church of Holy Expediency seeks to fight fire with fire – if a war with devils is looming on the horizon, who better to fight devils than the church’s very own band of misfit devils?

The Devils features a cursed knight who cannot die, a jane of all trades, a not-as-decrepit-as-he-seems vampire, a true Scandinavian werewolf, a corpse conducting magician, a semi-invisible elf, and a street rat turned princess. It’s exactly the kind of good time you’d hope from a ragtag list such as this. Tasked, and magically bound, with delivering Princess Alexia (street rat by nature, princess by birth) to the throne of Troy, the crew embarks on a dangerous and bloody adventure, bound only by Papal magic…though, like every good buddy story, friendship and love are not as far off as they may seem. Between Alexia’s many murderous cousins and a leaked copy of the Papal Bull announcing her right to the throne, the crew is met with no shortage of devastatingly gore filled encounters. And YES, this book is incredibly graphic! There are so many fighting, pillaging, and all out scrambling-for-their-very-lives scenes, but…but Abercrombie has deftly wielded the pen, creating humor and humanity with each stroke. I laughed out loud so many times, even in the midst of the Viggo-Wolf ripping limbs and snuffling out the good meat, it was truly a work of art – much unlike the way our beloved Jakob of Thorn, the cursed knight who just cannot die, wields his sword, that is to say, not so deftly.

Intertwined throughout this hilarious, gripping, suspense-filled book we come to find a few profound theological delights. Not only are we told right from the start that these creatures are devils, we’re bombarded with that information throughout every step of the way. Culturally, the world Abercrombie has introduced us to seems to believe that the only people worthy of a soul’s eternal salvation are, well, people. Anyone else is an unrepentant sinner, never mind whether the Viggo-Wolf has been baptized (twice), or whether the cursed knight has spent hundreds of years attempting to earn salvation, or the semi-invisible elf actually yearns for personhood. We find, by the time we reach the final page, that Abercrombie has been tenderly carrying us through to the very heart of his point : that one group of people is not inherently more worthy of salvation than another simply because they were born a certain way. We come to realize that in Abercrombie’s world, the Devils are in fact, no different than the humans. And, while I don’t know this information yet, I suspect humans are really no different than the Elves, either – perhaps even worse.

Bereft. Devastated. Aimless. All words to describe how I feel now that I’ve finished reading The Devils. Absolutely crushed that it’s over. But fear not! Abercrombie has written us a small opening, a thread, if you will. I feel certain that there will be a second book and hopeful that there will be a third after that. While The Devils doesn’t end on a cliffhanger (not so much a spoiler, but hopefully you don’t mind this information), it does end in such a way that makes me want to know more, that has me asking questions that went unanswered, intentionally, I believe, throughout this tome. Like a dark fantasy suicide squad, Abercrombie has a cast of characters who are begging to be put through another gritty adventure and I, for one, cannot wait to read what he comes up with next. I think it’s also worth pointing out that a significant number of the books Abercrombie has written all came in the form of a trilogy, so finger’s crossed!

Advice : The only thing I can really say is that if you really, really, really dislike any mention of blood or guts or gore, you might not enjoy this book. However, if you love witty repartee, a stunning vocabulary, nuanced characters and character arcs, or a buddy comedy, I think you’ll fall as head over heels for The Devils as I did. Put this one on your calendar – May 6, 2025. Preorder it. Trust me.