This had all the ingredients of a five star read but didn’t manage to fulfill its potential. A great cast of undead misfits plus Death’s god son, a good premise for a story line, but somehow the dialogue rambled and the pacing was off. Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

Masters of Death is an unconventional novel - an epic romance, quest saga and exploration of one of the best games I have read about for a while.

This has such a fantastic premise and really lives up to it. It is just like nothing else I have read before. At once this is a fantasy novel, murder mystery, romance and philosophical deliberation on life, death, the universe and the existential dread of mortality. Every single element of this is well-executed and balanced in a way that allows for a seamless blend of these varied genres.

Blake has such a way of capturing these complicated characters and making you fall head over heels for them, flaws and all. Our cast here is a unique band of rogues. I loved them all imminently and that only grew as I got to know them more. In particular, I really enjoyed how the conceit of the game served to reveal the truths of dynamics and secrets buried in the pasts of the characters. When Death is staring you down and everything is at stake, there is nothing left to hide.

As always, the themes being interrogated here are deeply fascinating. Blake weaves in explorations of life, family and facing Death, while celebrating the multiplicity of the forms of love. Each of these topics is given room to breathe and for the reader to digest, while also keeping the plot relentlessly marching on. However, it is not a straightforward read. Blake employs a non-linear narrative that perfectly matches the fragmented nature of the plot. You piece together relationships, dynamics and devious acts through snapshots across all of time and space. Death does not exist in a fixed moment and therefore neither can this book. I adored this style of narration so much. It added an extra layer to an already gorgeously interwoven book.

Masters of Death is a puzzle box of a book - complex and stunning.

I don’t know what to rate this but it’s something between three and four stars. On the one hand, I adored this. The narration was humorous, I loved the characters and their relationships with each other, I liked how fun it was (and how it reminded me a little of Good Omens, and I love Good Omens). I loved Fox and Brendt specifically.

On the other hand, I felt like something was off - it might have been that there are too many characters so none of them felt fleshed out enough for me and I didn’t get to know any of them as much as I would have liked, or that it felt like there was simultaneously too much going on and not enough. Everything felt a little all over the place for me.

This was my first Olive Blake book and overall I wasn’t disappointed, I look forward to reading some of her other books!

Thank you to Netgalley and publishers for the review copy

What a dynamic mix of supernatural characters! Loved everything about this book.

A fun take on death, angels, vampires, ghosts, demons and a whole host of supernatural beings as they come together in this sassy book. I adored Isis and her sassy attitude, and the banter between the characters.

The story follows the paranormal mash up as they try to sell a house, help a ghost pass over, find lost love, play an immortal game, oh and rescue Death.

This book gave me series Good Omens vibes, and was humourous, intriguing and sweet all at once.

Nothing is straightforward in this book as we follow Fox (Deaths godson), Vi (a vampire) and the rest of the crew. Loved the way the difference aspects of the story unravelled and the flashback backstories to all the characters. Dont think I've ever loved such a mix of characters more!

A brilliantly twisty, funny, hug of a book that I couldnt put down.

Thanks to netgalley, publishers and the author for the chance to read this.

DNF only a few chapters in.

The premise of this is honestly perfection - vampires, death and a haunted house. What more could a girl want?! But I just don’t think that Olivie Blake’s writing is for me.

I read The Atlas Six just over a year ago and while I loved the atmosphere and the concepts, I found it overwritten and got bogged down in what I found to be very try-hard writing, and I had similar issues with Masters of Death. Sadly, I think I just have to accept that Blake’s novels just don’t work for me and sulk about it, because this book? I wanted to love it so very much.

This book was, above all, beautiful. A stunning, intertwining tale of love and loss, between family, friends, and lovers. The lack of clear linearness of the story gave context and dimensions to the characters, allowing the reader to discover new, often heartbreaking details. The book is so much more than the blurb on the back cover and I am the most glad I was going into it relatively blind. Would highly recommend it to everyone, who would like to move their cold hearts and feel something. The spectrum of love and feeling portrayed would touch even the most stubborn readers. Personally, I was living and breathing for Mayra and Cal.

The only issue I had was with the Kindle format - I'm not sure if it was just my device but the chapter titles were missing some of the letters and some formatting was way off. Also all the double "ff" in words was missing (e.g. instead of offer it would be o er), but that was a minor technicaluty that did not take away from the story.

It took me a little while to get into the writing style but once I did I really enjoyed it. The plot was quite confusing but that was the point - we were learning alongside the characters. The characters were an interesting mix and everyone was morally grey which is something I enjoy in a book. This is the first book by this author that I have finished and it has made me more interested in reading her other titles now I’ve got used to the writing. The concept for the book was certainly not something I’d come across before and it was really interesting. I particularly liked the aspects of found family.

The formatting of the eArc I received had some issues, with letters missing in certain words and numbers randomly inserted in the middle of others which did take me out of the story as I had to work out what the text actually said.

Olivie Blake is officially one of my go to authors, I just know everything written by her is going to be exceptional. This did not disappoint in any way, shape, or form. Captivating and page turning.

With every new book I read from Olivie Blake I'm falling more and more in love with her writing. I love the poetic quality to it and the chaotic nature her dialogue is always written is messy and real and beautiful. I loved all the different mythologies that were used in this for the Creatures and adored having Death itself as a character and having it's own narrative viewpoint at the beginning of the book.

I was sceptical about the cast of characters going in because I think that's what I struggled with in the Atlas books but I think they're all equally well-developed and you get to know each of them well. The way they all interact with each other as a group is written immaculately, but this is true for the individual pairings and smaller groups too - I would love to read short stories/novellas about all the characters after the novel ended.

I thought the romance subplots all worked really well too - they were present enough to have a pay-off in adding to the characters themselves and the stories without feeling shoved-in, but they definitely weren't the focus of the book either (possibly excluding Fox and Brandt) which worked really well.

I absolutely loved the Game sequence and watching the characters move through the Game and best each other. The way it jumped between (manipulated) memories and the present added so much to the story and really made the reader feel immersed in the Game. Another great hit from Olivie Blake!

My first Olivie Blake and probably not my last.

This was a fun paranormal romp involving a vampire estate agent, a ghost who won't let her sell his house, Death's godson and a large cast of other supernatural characters.
The dialogue is very quick and witty, lots of banter and snarky comments. The characters are interesting, likeable and also messy, so messy.

I enjoyed it best when I just let the plot wash over me without thinking too much about it. At times it felt quite convoluted and difficult to grasp everything that was happening; at no point did I feel like I could even vaguely explain the central "Game" involved.
There's an awful lot of dialogue and the story would have been easier to grasp with a bit more general prose.
I also think that the spotlight of the story shifted and it seemed like the original main characters were somewhat shafted by the later half of the book.

Still, this was a fun book overall and sometimes you just have to embrace the chaos.

Olivie Blake & I have had such a rollercoaster love-hate relationship that I truly had no idea where I would fall on this - the premise sounded amazing, but then again, so had The Atlas Six and then it did not work out for me ... In the end, I was a little mid on this and enjoyed my time with it, but it didn't quite consume me and hold my heart in its clutches the way One For My Enemy did.

This had the wit, humour, whimsy and heart I've come to expect from the Olivie Blake that does speak to me, but it also could meander at this (which I didn't particularly mind as I was willing to go along with the story and found enough to be worth going on the journey for, but it also made it feel unfocused and left me adrift).

I loved the way this played with form (which is also a trademark I've noticed in the Blakes that do work for me!). I also loved the narrative voice of Death, and found that this book reminded me of The Book Thief because of that. Because of *checks notes* everything else, it reminded me of the k-drama Sell Your Haunted House and a bit of Good Omens.

First, I would like to thank the author & NetGalley for the eARC opportunity. Like always, this review is voluntary & honest


This book is about vampires. And demons. And Death. And love. And truths. And lies. This book is simply brilliant.

It was all so very exquisitely delivered

I loved the :
The ingenious storytelling.
The sarcasm and the dry humour (especially deaths)
This book is not for anyone looking for a light read, it's got such a complex concept ( which I loved )
The characters were excellent and they way the all intertwined was fantastic
The love between fox and brandt was truly touching.

What more could you want from a book!!

"We're archangels, not detective-twins "

"Things are so much sweeter when they
have an ending; things are so much more painful when they can be ripped away."

"Love is a rather mortal conception, don't you think? It can be born; it cannot exist alone; it can die. Love itself, then, is mortal .

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me an eArc for review! Olivie is one of my autobuy authors, so naturally I already have this on preorder, butttttt I couldn't resist getting an early peek 😂

And I LOVED IT!!

Enter Olivie's usually breed of chaotic characters, cynical, witty, multilayered and engaging — and then make them all of the paranormal persuasion (well ok, ALMOST all)

This book was just so much fun. All the characters were so messy and human (I know, I just said they're all paranormal, but YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN) and they all feel (even those that don't, really) and it was great.

Immortal games, some very questionable higher entities, gods and monsters and all the things between, this was a big impossipuzzle that came together piece by intricate piece and was just so satisfying!

And the feelings. Oh the feelings!! The love and friendship and ugh, the love ❤

This is a story about love, and death, and life, and raw humanity and all the mess it entails. And I just adored it!

'Masters of Death' is a contemporary supernatural fantasy ostensibly about a game, but also a musing on mortality and human relationships. Its a convoluted and verbose offering, told in a non-linear fashion with multiple tangents - and whilst Olivie Blake's eye for a quotable phrase is evident, the style prevents the reader from becoming as engaged as they should be.

Viola Marek has a few problems - being a vampire, accidentally killing her professor and having to drop out of college, her floundering career in real estate - but her biggest is that the house she's trying to sell is haunted. Desperate, she enlists the help of Fox D'Mora, professional medium, to solve her ghost problem. Fox is a shameless fraud, entirely unable to see the dead - but he's also the godson of Death himself. When it turns out the ghost's continued existence is caused by the disappearance of Death, the two find themselves roped into a quest to track him down - alongside a demonic personal trainer, a less-than-angelic angel, a lovestruck grim reaper, and a demigod from Fox's secretive past. For there's a game the immortals play - and in order to find Death, one of them will have to play it.

This is an ambitious book for its page count, with multiple characters given perspectives. Fox and Viola appear to be the main protagonists, but most of the supporting cast are offered some perspective: the story jumping around from snapshot to snapshot and trusting the reader to put together the puzzle pieces. Fox is definitely the character with the most growth and development - with Tom, the poltergeist haunting his own mansion, a close second.

Blake excels at the use of dialogue to create character relationships, crafting everything from witty banter to tense arguments to heartfelt declarations of love. This book packs so much in there's very little page time to explore most of the concept introduced, but despite this, the found family elements and primary romances are brilliantly crafted, with palpable chemistry. Blake works her way through a whole host of tropes, including forbidden romance and second-chance romance, with each relationship feeling fleshed out and believable.

Where the book falls down a little is its superficiality. Blake's most famous book, 'The Atlas Six', is another verbose and atmospheric offering with excellent character relationshops - but its characters and their musings on philosophy and psychology are carefully constructed, deeply crafted, fully immersing the reader in the story. It uses very light worldbuilding to focus everything on the characters. In contrast, 'Masters of Death' introduces a whole host of supernatural creatures, concepts around immortality, death, and the underworld, and multiple subplots within the overaching game - to the extent the main plotline isn't even touched on in the first 40% of the book. It simply doesn't have the room to examine every concept or character in depth, instead lending itself to confusion or even skim-reading. Whilst the writing remains beautiful, it sometimes lacks impact.

For fans of non-linear narratives, books exploring the relationships between characters, or those looking for a more unusual fantasy offering, this ticks plenty of boxes - but for me personally, I would have enjoyed stripping out a couple of subplots to allow a greater depth to the concepts explored.

Not my favourite of Olivie Blake's work but an enjoyable read nevertheless. I did find the plot to be a tad confusing in places and it took me a while to get into the story. However, I did enjoy the multiple POVs and eras.

An enjoyable read but not my favourite of Olivie Blake's. I found the plot a bit vague and uninteresting at points, and didn't engage with the characters very well. I did enjoy the conversational storytelling narrative though

I did enjoy this standalone from Olivie Blake.
It did take me a couple of chapters to get into the flow of the story but I also found myself getting confused at points too especially around the middle of the book. Once I understood what was going on it was great.
I enjoyed the multiple POV’s we got in the book as well as the multiple time eras. I loved the characters especially Fox who I found to be brilliant, funny and odd!
I really enjoyed the character dynamics in the book too and found them really well written and constructed. I loved the world building in the book too.
This book had you going through so many different emotions which is what I love when reading a book. This book was ultimately about finding love and losing it too.
I’d definitely read more from this author going forward.

Thank you to the author, Publisher and Netgalley for an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

We have a vampire real estate agent with a house to sell. A ghost is haunting the house and thwarting her efforts. Her demon best friend suggests she engages the help of Death's godson and he brings along his sidekicks - a reaper and and an angel. In the blink of an eye a murder mystery turns into a long lost love story.

I am a bit conflicted about this one. I really liked Olivie Blake's writing - it was easy to read and intelligent and it conjured such a vivid picture of the characters and their encounters. The dialogue was sharp and snappy and I liked the undertones of wry humour and the various character dynamics. I especially liked the portrayal of the angels and the gods. As more outlandish characters entered the fray it flirted with becoming farcical but it played out really well without quite descending from the sublime to the ridiculous. Unfortunately I just didn't connect with any of the characters so while I really enjoyed so many aspects of this book and appreciated it on so many levels it didn't quite capture my heart the way I hoped it would. I was interested in how things were going to turn out rather than invested.

As ever Blake’s style is brilliant, this was very different to the other works of hers I’ve read- there are a lot of perspectives which make the story hard to follow in places, but it had laugh out wit and is wonderfully woven. A really interesting and unique interesting take on paranormals with a good dose of humour.

This was my first Olivie Blake book and it did not disappoint at all!!! I actually decided to read this book immediately after I saw gorgeous fanart of the characters.

To be honest I don’t think I’ve actually ever read a book like this before. Everything about the book was so unique and it was like a whole new experience for me. This was the strangest, weirdest, the most chaotic and yet highly entertaining book I’ve read. The humour and dialogue was especially entertaining. There were moments throughout where I was like WTF IS GOING ON?! (But in a good, bewildered way)

I hadn’t even passed the halfway mark of the book when I realised that there was a high potential I’d be rating this 5 stars. As I kept reading, my love for this book and the characters just kept growing. The characters were so amazing! It’s been quite a while since I grew attached to new book characters and this motley group of paranormal creatures literally stole my heart.

Cal and Mayra are so adorable I love them!! Fox and Brandt too!! Vi and Tom had me squealing!! I was so invested in all of them!!

A random side note, VIOLA BEING HALF FILIPINO YASSS!!! WE LOVE THAT FILI REPRESENTATION!! (The aswang reference from Philippine vampire mythology was a nice touch too)

Death personified as a character was also amazing. His “godfather-godson” relationship with Fox was unexpectedly so heartwarming??

I also loved the way the story was told in different timelines (I tend to really love different timelines in books). The flashbacks throughout the novel were a fantastic way for me to understand the story and the characters more.

I’m definitely considering picking up Olivie Blake’s other books after loving Masters of Death.