Book Review: Masters of Death

Happy Halloween! I have the perfect book review to celebrate the holiday – Masters of Death by Olivie Blake. I picked this up specifically for spooky season because the premise sounded so interesting. I am a fan of the few things I’ve read by Olivie, but to be honest the Atlas Six books (I’ve read the first two – The Atlas Six and The Atlas Paradox – and still need to read the last book) are so complex and can be a little hard to follow because they’re dense, but beautifully written. Masters of Death was still complex with a lot of different threads going on but was much easier to follow and somehow Olivie created such a complicated world and storylines that weave together so beautifully. 

The novel follows a cast of paranormal characters. Viola Marek is a real estate agent in Chicago and also a vampire. Her newest listing is a mansion belonging to the wealthy and supposedly cursed Parker family. All the men in the family have a history of dying tragic deaths including the last of the family line, Tom Parker IV. Viola’s biggest hurdle to overcome with selling this mansion? Tom is a ghost/poltergeist and can’t leave the house. 

Viola enlists the help of other “creatures” or paranormal friends and acquaintances to try to help Tom move on. Her closest friend is Isis, a personal trainer and demon, and their other friends have the idea to contact Fox D’Mora. He tells people he’s a medium, but they all know he’s a fraud. However, he is the godson of Death and maybe he can ask his godfather who killed Tom. There’s one problem – Death is missing.  

Fox’s gets his friends – his guardian angel, Myara Kaleka, and Cal Sanna – a reaper – to help in the search too. Lastly, the crew is rounded out with Brandt Solberg, a thief who is immortal and has a history with Fox. The group works together to find Death and prepare to play the game of immortals to save themselves and the ones they love. 

The premise sounded really interesting when I picked this up, but like many books I’ve been reading lately this book totally surprised me with how much I loved it. The storyline was so engaging and interesting. The deep love between characters ran the whole gamut of emotions from beautiful to sad to heartbreaking and hopeful. It’s a story of life and death and love and found family. 

I just loved all the characters – each one of them – especially Viola, Tom, Fox, and Brandt. Myara and Cal made my heart giggle too with how much they longed for each other like kids. 

Read this if you want a paranormal contemporary fiction with some romance and found family vibes. 

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