by Katie Robertson
New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author Olivie Blake – most famous for her dark academia fantasy series The Atlas Six – has written a book perfect for fans of ghosts, vampires, and spooky twists and turns. Her hit ebook Masters Of Death – here getting its first physical release – isn’t as well-known as The Atlas Six, but it’s the one that really made us fall in love with her writing.
We meet estate agent Viola Marek (known as Vi), who’s a vampire, and the house on sale is haunted, and its ghost was murdered. When Vi hires Fox D’Mora to deal with her ghost-infested mansion, she expects a competent medium. But unbeknownst to Vi, Fox is both a fraud and the godson of Death.
In the first intriguing quarter, we become acquainted with a set of main characters who, on the surface, seem like normal human people who grew up with normal human parents. But as we dig deeper, we find fascinating facts about them. Fox did not grow up with normal human parents but with his godfather: Death. Vi was a normal human person with normal human parents, but one day she was transformed into a vampire. And then our side characters include werewolves, sirens and reapers. On my!
From the opening page, this writer was lost inside the ambience of Blake’s world and forgot that we were reading words on a page. The characters are so well written, each with their own quirks, which (although they are all supernatural beings) made them quite believable. From the first page, it’s like opening a door into a haunted mansion or a medium’s dark and calm apartment. Blake really has a way with words and wields them to create a beautiful, funny, creepy, and immersive world.
Halfway into this spectacular story, we began to get lost. So many questions: what is ‘the game?’ How is the group going to get along whilst going on their quest? Is the spirit a ghost or a poltergeist? (The answer to that last question depends on who you ask!) It was these questions which kept us glued to the book. We started to learn more and more about Vi and about the complicated past between Bradt and Fox, we met the villain, and we saw all of our protagonists together in one haunted, cursed room. All of these factors made it imperative we read on.
If you are planning on reading Masters of Death, be prepared to be lost in the mystery along with the characters. After every flick of the page, there is a plot twist waiting for your arrival, which will make you question everything that you thought you knew.
This book is perfect for people who want a lighthearted, chaotic adventure with supernatural elements and a fun, complex plot. Masters of Death felt like an epic mixture of all our favourite books and TV shows while remaining both original and unpredictable. If you enjoyed Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens, you will adore this book.
