I felt that Saint Death's Daughter was made propulsive by the continuous twists of the plot and made meaningful by the depth of Lanie's relationships with those she loves, and I felt that this book was sorely missing in both.

At the end of the first book, I would have said that Lanie's most interesting, captivating relationships were with Mak, the man who was also captive to her sister and who grows from thinking of her as an abomination to thinking of her as family, and with Lir, Lanie's beloved who maybe betrayed her. These two relationships are entirely backburnered, and instead we have as secondary characters Duantri, who is a paragon of virtue and unquestionably good, Grandpa Rad, who is pure selfishness and unquestionably evil, and Cracchen, who would be more interesting if he was not forced into a position of allyship by circumstances and was in a position to litigate his relationship with Lanie. None of those three characters, who are the ones who get the most pages, have any of the tension with Lanie that Mak did or that Lir did, and I really felt that loss. Halfway through, we get some old faces flying into the story, but it's still not actually a source of friction or conflict or interest.

Also, frankly, it's a little boring. At about the halfway mark, I realised that there was no hope of the plot zigging and zagging that made the first book so unpredictable and interesting, and instead it was going to be a whole book of tracking down Grandpa Rad, who is quite possibly the least interesting character of all. The problem with realising that one particular problem is going to be the entire plot is that it means that whenever it seems like there is hope for a victory along the way, you know that it's going to be undone by some (sometimes literal) deus ex machina so that the stakes can continue to raise and the plot continue on. When the story finally was wrapped up, I didn't get the sense that the steps taken for that to happen were materially different than any of the steps that had been taken previously; it just happened to be time for that to happen. In Saint Death's Daughter, Lanie had any number of goals to be pursued in parallel, and there were any number of enemies to be concerned about. One enemy, one quest, simply cannot compete. I did enjoy the back half a bit more, but that might just have been because I lowered my expectations and started thinking of it as fluff.

Obviously, the world building continues to be great and the politics of the continent continues to be interesting, with some necessary shades of grey applied to wars we have previously heard about. The prose is lively, though I do miss the sheer density of footnotes about historical Stoneses and their ridiculous names of the first book. I prepared a review of this when I nearly DNF'd it halfway through, and I probably would have left it there but for the fact that I had an ARC and felt obliged to finish. That review exists above with very few changes: the back half did not become so completely interesting that my opinions changed.

It's a pleasant book, and you'll enjoy it more if you think of it as fluff rather than as a complex work of fantasy.

Much like the first book in the series, I found this one to excel in terms of the world building and character work. Both were done with nuance and kept my interest. I found the magic system, as well, to be inventive and fun. Where the book fell flat for me was the plot structure. It was very linear, to the point of predictability. There was one clear goal, and the obstacles that came along the way seemed contrived, merely a means of extending the narrative than anything else. An interesting subplot would have done wonders. As it were, I got pretty bored towards the middle, and skimmed my way through the last half of the book.

I saw the necromancer in the description and I knew I was sold on this story. The story is well written and the journey of the characters will have you puzzled yet hooked.

Two months after the events of Saint Death’s Daughter, Miscellaneous Stones is upon a quest… to seek down her rogue ghost ancestor, Irradiant Stones, who has possessed the body of Cracchen Skrathmandan, to release “Grandpa Rad” to his long overdue rest, and to free Cracchen: as she promised to Sari, his mother.

But Grandpa Rad has no intention of going quietly.

What follows is a riotous, gloriously rendered tale, richly populated with characters both beloved and new. Lanie must follow her quarry into the dread lands of Leech, home of skinchangers; win challenges unheard of; wield magics ancient and experimental, and face both herself and her god.

Spiderwebbed with poetry, laced with verse, this is bouncingly robust prose, a feast of good things to consume. Written with gleeful verve, shivering with spooky anticipation and rich with delight, tenderness and romance, this is a story to love and devour - a triumphantly transformational epic.

featuring:
- the return of Underwear Stones, world’s best undead dog (He’s named after his primary diet)
- the return of Stripes, world’s best undead tiger rug
- Flying houses
- Romantic entanglements and passionate yearning
- Found family
- Magical duels
- Crimes against gods and men
- a kinda sexy crab (don’t ask

Death is one of the great mysteries that has fascinated mankind throughout all our known history. Naturally, there’ve been no shortage of fantasy novels exploring it either. Necromancy is a way of exploring it in fantasy novels, and I’ve seen death and necromancy portrayed in so many ways in various settings. I’ve read about necromancers wielding death as a grim and terrible weapon, using their powers as a gruesome method of gleaning information from the dead, they’ve been solemn figures respectfully laying the dead to a final death, and I’ve even read about necromancers who use their mastery over death to act as supernatural lawyers.

But C.S.E. Cooney’s Saint Death series has probably been my favorite portrayal of death and necromancy that I’ve ever read. Here death is a tender comfort granted by a loving god. Here Lanie stones is a necromancer possessed of such overflowing compassion that she’s actually allergic to violence. And it’s just…such a comfortable thing to read. I adore how death is explored as a soothing balm. I love seeing how such a compassionate and pure protagonist moves through a world that does not deserve her. I love seeing how she continues to come into herself, and wield her necromancy in such a wonderful way. Her journey in this novel isn’t something to be missed.

Saint Death’s Herald is a book that, even at it’s most frenzied and chaotic, manages to remain soothing and comforting. It is a book where death is a link that allows love and compassion to flow back and forth between the necromancer and the dead. It is a balm for us readers stuck in a world that is so much harsher than the pages of this novel.

This novel is a wonderful adventure, and it is a gentle embrace that everyone deserves to languish in. Do yourself a favor and read this book, wrap yourself in its words and let them comfort you. You deserve it.

With Grandpa Rad freely roaming the world in Cracchen's body, Lanie and her family pause Makkovian's pilmigrage to hunt down and return his ghost to Saint Death. Leaving with just Duantri and Stripes, Lanie follows him north, where they finally believe they have cornered. He is, however, able to "jump ship" at the last minute and take over a skinchangers body, which is basically the worst-case scenario for Lanie. With Cracchen on the brink of death, Grandpa Rad heading for Leech to possess an even more powerful skin changer, and now the Storm of Souls bearing down on her Lanie is truly in the fight of her life.

While Herald isn't as light and feathery as Daughter was, it was still excellent. We get to truly see how much Lanie has grown over the last two books. She is so much more confident in herself and in the love and trust her family has in her. Not only that, she is absolutely badass. I mean she was in the first book but her abilities have just exploded in this one and it's not just that she's stronger but it is her love for the dead and her goddess and trust in her family and friends that allow her to do things that quite frankly Grandpa Rad would never even conceive. Makkovian explains it perfectly at one point by saying that Lanie just makes death seem friendly, and I think that sums it up perfectly.

The world is expanded upon as well as we learn more about the skin changers and the Skakdi in the one. I genuinely didn't even remember the skin changers being mentioned in the first one, so I'm glad we got a pretty in-depth course into who they are and how their magics work. And once again we have Lanie's infectious appreciation of anything new and novel that takes something that seems scary on the surface and makes it intriguing, it's just impossible to *not* be excited as she is to learn more about how skin changer magic works even if it seems very wrong on the surface.

Grandpa Rad is actually far worse than I could have possibly imagined, though. I mean far worse. The difference between how he wields his necromancy and how Lanie wields it are night and day, and I'm so glad we were able to clearly see that contrast here. Lanie is absolutely light and love and beauty, and that's always clear, but it becomes so much more clear when in direct opposition to Rad's violent, almost abuse of death. He simply doesn't care. The dead are a means to an end for him. When Lanie does finally put an end to everything, how she does it is such an important testament to who she is as a person and as a necromancer as well. It was a culmination of everything we knew Lanie to be, and it was beautiful.

What I really loved here, though, is Lanie expanding her group of friends and finding her place within it. She's absolutely gobsmacked at one point that it never even crossed her mind to just send letters to Hakken, and that's genuinely such a Lanie thing to do. Shes just a little bit outside of everyone else all of the time and by the end of Herald I think she found her place within her ever growing circle of friends and that she's finally comfortable in that spot. Comfortable enough that she actually goes back to Nurr on her own, and that seemed like a monumental step for me. I am very curious if we will ever pick up anything with Cracchen, though. I just really feel like there needs to be a morally gray character hanging around. With the changes he goes through in this book I definitely feel like he's no longer the evil assassin he was in the last book, but, he's also pragmatic enough to make the tough decisions Lanie wouldn't be able to.

Overall, I *hope* there's a book three. I want to continue to roam this world with Lanie and her family and friends and watch her grow as both a person and a necromancer. And yeah, of course I recommend this series! There is simply nothing else like it that I've ever found!

As always, thanks to NetGalley and Solaris

Saint Death's Herald by C. S. E. Cooney is such a good book. It's a masterpiece! I just loved the storyline, the characters are fantastic. It's truly a masterpiece.