thank you so much to the publisher for an arc of this book.

Me and Olive Blake have a love-hate relationship and this was oeìne was def a love one.
I am obsessed with this book.
I love the entire concept of the book and the way it was written it just captivated me so much that i could not put the book down!

The first line of the first chapter was “Hello children. It’s time for death.” which is one of the best book opening lines I’ve read. Every page you turned gave you something unique and new, made it so hard to put the book down and gave you many reasons to keep reading

The illustrations in this book were absolutely beautiful. My book is full of tabs and annotations because there were so many parts I wanted to remember.

This was like a book I’ve never read before. I loved the mythical multiple creatures and demons and the range of different characters we got to meet. I also loved how we got to know everyone’s story individually and then how they were woven together when they all met. Lots of mentions of autumn too 🍂

The handful of chapters in the last 25% of the book had me gripped! The ending was beautiful and the footnote at the end made me emotional

I love Olivie’s writing and can’t wait to read more of her books. Addie LaRue was one of my favourites so I knew this would be good,

As a fan of Atlas Six I was really looking forward to Masters of Death by Olivie Blake, the story is loosely about a newly bitten vampire estate agent is trying to sell a haunted mansion and resorts to asking for help from dodgy medium who is the Godson of Death who she wishes to exorcise property. There is a huge cast of characters taken from mythology and stories but none of them I found engaging. It sounded right up my street but it felt messy, I’m not sure if it was the flashbacks but I found it a more difficult story to get into. It did start interestingly but then at times the relationship with death and his godson felt subpar Mort from Terry Pratchett and the story just didn’t really feel like it went everywhere. I found none of the characters particularly likeable even the ones I felt we were meant to like. I loved her writing style in Atlas Six which I found an easy read but not this one which took a real effort to get through.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Tor for the digital ARC, it has not affected my honest review.

Despite being sure that I'd love this book, it didn't end up working out for me- there's too many characters from the beginning and not enough development, plot lines are introduced and then passed aside for others, and I found the storyline difficult to follow compared to what the synopsis said. This is my second book by this author, I loved One For My Enemy, but this one just didn't meet my expectations.

I always love Olivie Blakes writing, even if she's not for everyone, but sometimes her writing works better for certain plots than others. I found this one had a really slow start, with many characters who were introduced perhaps too slowly, so it was difficult to decide who we were supposed to care about. Ultimately though, when the plot picked up speed, I felt much more invested, and I liked the conclusion of how it played out. She's always has creative plots, that keep me guessing, and I liked the character resolutions, so overall this was a fun read.

This has the hints of purple prose we saw so much in her other work, yet matched with a very glib, slapstick, slightly ridiculous banter (I’m looking at you, angels) rather than the witty dialogue I enjoyed so much in the Atlas books. This was just a bit too much of multiple random ideas thrown together for me, and I think if it had the same style as some of her other books I could have liked it more. I did enjoy the parts of the story narrated by Death, but they weren’t as frequent as I would have preferred!

𝘽𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬|

Viola is a struggling real estate agent and a vampire. But her biggest issue at the moment is the house she's trying to sell is haunted. And the ghost refuses to move on until he works out the mystery of his murder.
Fox is a medium and a fraud. But he's not entirely useless as he's also the Godson of Death. When Viola reaches out for help to get rid of her ghost problem, they end up involved in a quest which has higher stakes than any of them planned on.

I don't know if it's just me and Olivie Blake but I find her writing beautiful but often too pretentious. Why use one word when seventeen will do? This was my second attempt at her books after DNFing The Atlas Six so maybe she's not for me. This book has loads of five star reviews online so judge as you will 🥰

There's humour in there, don't get me wrong. I definitely laughed at times and I liked the characters - a haphazard group of demons, reapers, angels, ghosts and vampires to name a few. The idea of this book was definitely unique and interesting and I liked the moral message behind it and it made me think about mortality and what it means to be human.

The mystery kept me reading right to the end but if you asked me to describe the plot to you or the “immortal game” I couldn't. It often left me feeling really confused at what was going on so I'm not sure how I felt about it at the end.

All I know is I probably won't try and reread it as I'll just get lost somewhere in the woods and unable to get back out 🤣

Thank you to @netgalley for the copy in exchange for an honest review 💜

4.5 stars – a huge thank you to Tor for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for a review.

I'm new to Olivia Blake and this book has me hooked. Blake's narrative voice and rich storytelling make Masters of Death a beautiful story about so many things. I was not expecting a love story from this book, but it is one of the main plot themes, and it is beautiful. Parts of this story are non-linear, moving backwards and forwards in time from different perspectives, which can sometimes be confusing in the moment – but it will make more sense as the book reaches its conclusion.

This was a 5* book for me right until the end. Without stepping into spoilers territory, I found one of the relationships to be a little too rushed for my liking, and the conclusion left everything a little too perfect. I would have liked a hint of a bittersweet ending, particularly with life and death being such a common theme. However, it is a standalone, and I understand why these narrative choices were made, and these all really come down just to personal choice.

Masters of Death is a masterclass in showing, not telling, and I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish. If you liked Netflix's The Sandman, or Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series, you will love Masters of Death.

There were a few formatting issues in advanced copy, which made one or two sections a little bit difficult to read - but I am sure these were just due to my version being imported to Kindle. I have seen physical copies of this book and they are BEAUTIFUL - be sure to pick up a special edition if you can.

There’s a high energy to ‘Masters of Death’ by Olivie Blake (prologue dynamite!). It rightly skips along. It’s a fun fantasy read and it was a pleasure to be lost in its world, because Blake’s universe here is so assertive and well-grounded. I felt, not so much that an authorial hand was guiding me, but that I was eavesdropping on the characters in their own reality. There’s something masterful about that (excuse the pun).

When I first read Olivie Blake’s writing, I was overly critical of some of her cringe-worthy content, her over-reliance on sexual content, and her swaggering tone. But now, a few books deep in her back catalogue, and those things almost welcome me in; I know what to expect, and in some ways, a Blake novel feels like coming home. I’m probably over-sentimentalising. But I am pleased to have read a few of her recent releases in quick succession, because familiarity with her work has enabled me to pinpoint and better appreciate elements of her style (I’m aware that her latest are re-issues of early novels, but I’m assuming they’ve been put through the editing process again for re-publication).

‘Masters of Death' feels like a young read; its frenetic energy can sometimes feel a touch hectic. Blake achieves this through a considered reliance on parentheses; in places, her sentences have so much to convey that they end up lapping over themselves like little waves on the surface of a bigger swell. Not anything like, say, Philip Roth’s verbosity. This is more scripty; this remains peppy and peart. It's admirable just how much dynamism Blake has injected into her style, and her smatterings of authorial intervention are fun to read. The tone they create is a kind of sniggering-behind-our-hands at the characters and their situations. And the cast of characters comprises really solid, memorable and believable personalities, at that.

Blake has always stood out for me in terms of character creation, and it’s wonderful to see her flair for writing dialogue come to the fore; it shows maturity in this novel. It’s really had the screws tightened on it. It always pleases me when dialogue carries the weight of a narrative, rather than description. Overall, Blake's language in this novel makes a more sophisticated use of adverbs and adjectives, skilfully employs parentheses, as well as interrupted speech, a narrator’s point of view, and authorial intrusion.

All of the above comes together to make this a sort of stagecraftey novel: the multitudinous cast; the scene-swapping; Blake sweeping us from one view of the action to another. There's something of 'Angels in America' about it. I'm sure there'll be comparisons drawn to Neil Gaiman's works, too, especially 'The Sandman' and 'Good Omens' (with Terry Pratchett), though there's something of ‘American Gods here too. “Masters of Death’ comes down to jaunty light-heartedness, in the end. Excepting, perhaps, some of Fox and Brandt’s exchanges, there's none of the over-earnestness that I’ve found lurking in other Blake novels. This is buoyant and frisky.

I'm thrilled to have had the chance to read this early proof, and I'm excited to see what’s next from Olivie Blake! My thanks to Tor Publishing Group for an eARC.

4/5

A very character based fantasy, with an interesting and unique concept. I loved how you could really connect to all of the characters, I would have enjoyed a bit more background for a few of the side characters though.

Olivie Blake’s writing style was once again perfection, the entire book flowed so nicely.

Overall, I throughly enjoyed this book!

**I was provided with an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

In terms of overall vibes I think this may be my favourite Olivie Blake book to date.

There is just something about supernatural and immortal creature being thrown into the modern day world that I enjoy a lot and there were some great characters in this book and their dynamics with one another were so fun!! I’m not alone in seeing the Good Omens vibes here and I was hooked all the way through, speeding through the book in the space of a weekend.

Down to the bare bones the book is a bunch of characters who are thrown together to rescue Death but there are a lot of moving pieces behind the mystery at the heart of the story.
Blake’s storytelling made the world (though it is pretty much just an AU of our world) feel so lived in with these creatures and beings just living their lives. The writing just makes you feel so deeply for them and their conundrums particularly when it came to relationships, I was very much invested with all of the pairings in this one.

The only real issue that I had where how sometimes the writing style switched up, changing from a more regular third person account to script like dialogue without any warning. I think it disrupted the flow of the story for me and threw me off a little at times especially when these script-esque segments dragged on for a bit too long..

However, I really enjoyed watching the individual arcs of the characters unfold and they all came together in such a satisfying way. All in all a very entertaining read.
Final Rating - 4.25/5 Stars

Masters of Death by Olivie Blake 💀 BOOK REVIEW

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

✒️ Favourite Quote:
"Isn't forever a terrible blessing, and a terribly blissful curse?"

🐈‍⬛️ What is it about?

Viola Marek is a vampire, struggling to sell a house, because it is haunted, by a ghost.

When Viola seeks out Fox (the godson of Death) to help her with her ghost-infested mansion, they end up on a quest to preserve humanity as we know it. To do so they need to play the game of immortals, where there is only 1 rule - don't lose!

🐈 My thoughts:
This book is a bunch of fragments put together, with loads of characters and plots. At first, nothing was making sense, but then Olivie Blake puts all the little pieces together and slowly unravels this amazing storyline.
There are so many things happening at once and everything is just fantastic. The concept of the game is discovered very slowly throughout the story and it is fascinating!
It took me a while to get through this one, very different writing style, big words, very lyrical. Every sentence has a meaning and is written in a very clever way. But as soon as the game began... I just couldn't put it down.
I do recommend this book, it feels like an adult fantasy book, it is incredibly complex and at the same time incredibly simple. Will be reading more by the author for sure.

An intriguing and interwoven story with fully fleshed-out characters, dynamic dialogue and constant curve balls. I was constantly thinking about the past, present and future of the story line trying to keep from falling off the edge of my seat. Olivie Blake has stunned us again with greatness.

Masters of Death had a gorgeous concept and a lively cast of characters including a cranky ghost, a well-meaning vampire, a pair of annoying angels, a sly demigod and the godson of Death he jilted. The beginning and ending kept me hooked, although admittedly the plot became quite slow in the middle and at times a little tangled between the many perspectives and subplots. The dialogue was so snappy and quickfire that I wish the pacing met it, but overall this book was a lot of Gaiman-esque fun.

I have loved Olivie Blakes other books and wanted to love this one two but unfortunately this one was not for me. I had to force myself to read it and even then gave up at 60%, there didn’t seem to much of plot it was just constant dialogue. The characters had a lot of long conversations which did the seem to further the plot and left me feeling bored.

*Thank you to Netgalley and Todotcom for an advance copy of this book in exchange of my honest review*

First and foremost, I want to say this is my personal opinion and I don’t have the truth about books. If you feel like you might like this novel please read it, as I’m sure many people will enjoy it. Unfortunately I wasn’t one of those people.

I’m not really sure how to describe <i>Masters of Death</i> by Olivie Blake. <u>Sadly I couldn’t even finish it and decided to quit the book after 50%.</u> It is <b>chaotic, messy and has no plot </b>whatsoever.

I was really hoping to like the book. I heard amazing things about Olivie’s past books and I was really excited to read it. At the beginning, the story and characters seemed quite funny and I was hooked for the first 15% of the book. However after that, everything started to go south quickly.

<u>The characters are a mix of cultures and folklore that don’t fit together.</u> We have Death, Greek gods, asian vampires, ghosts, faes, demons, and a whole other bunch of creatures that only talk, and talk, and talk over a game that the author never explains. The plot stays the same for half of the book and one of the reasons why I quit it was because I didn’t know what the book was about.

<b>The author’s style </b>was also really confusing. Is she writing a fiction book? Is she writing a theater play? Does she even know? The tone and style of the book change a few times without a reason. She also includes some extra notes between dialogues as if the reader was stupid. There's no need to explain every little detail; we get it, your characters are really deep and intense. To me, <b>her style comes across as pretentious and tedious.</b>

What looked like an excellent idea was no more than a <b>mediocre execution</b> and it saddens me to say that I’m not sure if I’ll try another book by the author as I don’t feel like I’d enjoy them as much as other books.

2⭐/5⭐
🏳️‍🌈 Rep: L(GB)T – Main and side characters

My review:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I wasn't sure what to expect of Masters of Death, but a story of love really wasn't on the list!

This has a cast of characters that we spend time with, and is a story that spans hundreds of years!

There's demons, a reaper, angels, a range of other immortals and mortals.

There are aspects that you just have to trust in the storyteller to explain something when you need to know more, and that pays off!

This is a great story, told with comedy, longing and love.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Pan Macmillan.

Masters of Death is a fun, manic frolic filled with angels, demons, vampires, ghosts, mortals and even Death, himself. It's masterfully written though chaotic, picking up random strings of the story from various angles without a linear progression. It's filled with sarcasm and all sorts of grandiose dialogue and pronouncements that might boggle the mind if you try too hard to make sense of things. It's a wild roller coaster ride of multi-dimensional scope and I don't feel comfortable saying what this novel is about as tidbits of plot are sprinkled casually, though with great purpose, throughout.

I found this a fun distraction but did grow weary of the many exasperated ways characters uttered, "Fox". It felt as if that one name was mentioned for pages and pages. This was pretty much my only niggle. Fox is exasperating but that just gave more depth to the vast array of characters and the role they play within the wide web of narration. Fun, crazy, fully distracting. Masters of Death was just what I wanted, thank you.

I’m so sad that I didn’t love this one. It took me a really long time to get into and it turned out to be very different that what I was expecting. I’ll try this author again, but this didn’t work for me.

I like stories that use Death as a character and I thought Olivie did this really well. There was a big cast of characters and this definitely had a found family feel to it. However, the story did feel a bit all over the place - I think there was so much going on with the different characters, timelines and sub plots that it was hard to properly get to know any of the characters and I didn’t really care that much about any of them. I did still enjoy it but I much prefer Olivie’s other books.