This was the second time that I attempted to read this book. Last time I was in a reading slump, and I forced myself through 20% before I stopped reading. This time, I powered through.

I enjoyed the premise of this book, and despite what a lot of people have been saying, I did enjoy the political aspect in this book. However, I saw the twist coming from a mile away. From the moment Naya woke up as an undead, I knew what happened and what was going to happen political wise.

I don't really see the need for this being a series, BUT I kinda do want to know what happens in the next one.
One thing I strongly disliked was how stupid Naya could be. She kept telling herself lies to make herself feel better. The fact that a whole group wanted to follow her baffled me.

3.5 stars in the end.

Oh my goodness this book!

I found myself on the edge of my seat at times.

There were ai many twists and turns that took place in this book. And so many discoveries and mysteries to be made and solved.

And I just couldn't put it down until that last page was read.

Would recommend to any fantasy fans looking for a 5 star read

This book was an interesting interpretation of necromancy, especially with the main character, Naya Garth, as a newly-turned wraith. I felt like the author creatively expressed her own interpretation of necromancy and made it much less dark of a topic than I’ve seen in most other situations. However, I think the romance between Naya and Corten wasn’t really necessary in this story, but I would like to see it develop in further books in the series. Although I am not sure if there are other books coming soon, I do think this series would be much stronger with the characters and political machinations flushed out in additional books. As a standalone novel, the story needs more details.

This had a great plot and great characters! I felt immediately drawn into the story and totally think this will be a big selling hit when it is released! I cannot wait for other works by this author and recommend this wholeheartedly!

An excellent YA book and hopefully the next one will be out soon as it leaves you wanting more and not all the strings are tied up by the end. It has the feel of Shadow & Bone, a petite female who learns through adversity that she is strong and capable and usual world saving. While most heroines are dying to do good and help others Naya aka Blue literally died before she even had a cause. Back stabbing, spy trade, necromancers, lies, first love, and political unrest. What more could one want in a story. Can't wait for Necromancer's Song Book 2!

One Sentence Synopsis: Necromancers, secret missions, and the realization that EVERYTHING is not what it seems.

Why You Should Be Reading: You get the opportunity to watch Naya, the daughter of a sea captain, grow, push past her prejudices, and come into herself after her death and resurrection. The fact that she’s not perfect, that she stumbles, and that she puts her foot in her mouth every once in a while, makes her feel honest and relatable. Oh, and I didn’t mention the love story yet. The connection that she has with a certain young man (No names cuz those are spoilers.

But trust me, you’ll know who he is) is grounded in love and loss. And the more time they spend together, learning about the other, the more they understand how this second chance at life isn’t something they should squander.

Take all this and mix it in with a looming war, lies, and the real reason why Naya died and you’ve got the makings of a great book!

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, POC Lead

Learn more about the author HERE.

Buy Twice Dead HERE.

Add Twice Dead to your Goodreads HERE.

Thank you netgally for the chance to read this arc... I tried reading this and after about 30% I had to put it down it just was not grabbing my attention and I found it a little confusing. I really wanted to like this one :( I may try and pick it up again one day but for now its a DNF.

Unfortunately, this book wasn’t for me. However, I’m sure many will love it! I may be tempted to give it another shot in the future.

Riveting plot.
Amazing world.
Fresh characters.

What's not to love?

I would recommend Twice Dead to anyone who is intrigued by Necromancy and is interested in a flawed, deeply human main character who doesn't disappoint. Also, a side romance is always a nice plus.

After trying and failing several times to come back to this book, I have to finally throw in the towel. I couldn't get invested in the story, and kept losing interest after a few pages.

I had hope for this book and I'm sorry I couldn't leave a better review.

Interesting concept, but slow world building. I didn't feel a strong connection with the characters and didn't feel as if there was much character growth. It unfortunately wasn't a book for me, but I think others would love it.

I love the plot of this book. It's such a fascinating concept! I loved how strong Naya was as a character, but I just couldn't connect with the book and it didn't hold my attention. It felt to me like the story, for all its dark tone, should have had an older character, someone a bit more mature. I am not sure how much I like dark YA stories, it's such a fine line to walk between making it too dark or not dark enough. Unfortunately this book wasn't for me, but I am sure other people will love it!

The problem with the story is the lag. There’s so much going on in the story, and yet there is insufficient character development. The story focuses too much on world-building than the characters. The story presents a world steeped in political intrigue, espionage, and magic, and yet the story takes too long to develop, and it takes too long to develop the plot of the story.

Following Naya, the unexpected happens to her, when on a mission for her father, she dies…and then comes back from the dead. It is an exciting way to start off a story, a compelling way to lure the reader in, but past that, the story does not focus enough on the exciting aspects of the story that would keep the reader interested. It is full of unnecessary detail regarding the world building, except it fails to make the story interesting. There’s history here, a history that buried for half the novel, which is regrettable because it is fascinating history, and does serve to make the last half of the novel compelling and tension driven. It also saves the characterization because, for the first half of the novel, Naya is not that likable, in fact, she is written as a somewhat two-dimensional character.

Many ideas are going into this novel, and they are many ways in which it can work, but the problem is the novel does not have a clear focus. The narrative should have a clear focus on the political Intrigue in the novel, turning the narrative into a more character-driven one, and yet it fails to create a captivating character. Naya is not a captivating character, she is bland when she is supposed to come off as angsty on some level, but the tone failed to capture that. She is a rather unlikable character in the beginning, and the narrative does not capture her conflict instead of sort of sidesteps many of the tension driven scenes I could have evolved into something but ended up falling flat. There’s one thing with her in a necromancer, and it seems like it could be a potent scene to showcase the internal pains of each character and the overlaying tension, but it is left undeveloped. Naya’s anger comes to the forefront and blinds her, diminishing what could have been an excellent scene for development and character dynamics. The scene and many after fizzle out. Much of the first half of the book is like that a lot of these tension driven scenes are just fizzled out without any development.

The last half of the novel is really where the story starts to pick up and comes together. The political Intrigue and espionage finally gets to shine. Naya gets to develop, finally, and through her, the character dynamics as well. The ending of the novel does draw interest to the sequel, so it at least does create energy and curiosity for the story’s future. Again the first half of the novel is very lackluster it has so much detail that isn’t important to the story or interesting to the reader and just weighs the story down. It is unfortunate because the concept is interesting, except it is weighed down by dull unessential detail, However, again that is only for the first half of the novel if the reader can tough it out they will be impressed by the second half of the novel which starts to get itself together.

I love character driven stories and this one is amazing. The plot is so unique with wraiths, pirates, murders and a former necromancer! Such an outstanding fantasy novel.

This one took me a bit to get into but then I really enjoyed it! I wish we had more necromancer books out there in the world. It's a concept that isn't done in YA very much and because of that I thought it was a wonderful addition to the YA world.

Naya is a girl who is looking to impress her father and in the process gets turned to a wraith and enters the world of necromancy. The hard thing to love about her is that she does a lot of reacting to the story and not a lot of taking action in the story. That was the hardest part of getting into her character.

Ultimately I would say this book was a solid entertainment read. If you're looking for a good time and a distraction I would recommend it. The characters are all solid in their motivations if not a bit typical.

The world took some wrestling with but then it works really well. If you loved this I would recommend a lot of Rachel Vincent's work from her My Soul To Steal series. It has a lot of the same themes and tension.

I loved the magic in this, the idea that the dead can be brought back and be themselves, not an evil reanimated corpse like you might expect, but functioning, themselves.
The writing wasn’t bad and the story had a lot of promise, my issue was with the mc, Naya, and just how naive she was. She was also judgemental, racist and pretty sure of her own superiority.

It’s understandable that when you are raised to believe only one thing about someone else, you go with that, but I think because it made such an obvious story arc, I found it annoying. Naya was so busy looking down at everyone and everything, that she missed everything going on around her. All she had to do was look up and around once and she might have seen what was going on.
Plus, Naya was on her mission, she believed fully in what she was doing, she had been groomed to fear these people, so when her beliefs were thrown up in the air I just didn’t believe her reactions. I just don’t think her 180 was executed well.

There was a lot of cool things happening, the necromancy, the political intrigue, the romance, but I couldn’t really get passed the MC and her self righteous ways. I really liked Corten though. He was such a nice guy. If i’m going to be completely honest, I couldn’t remember whether or not I had finished the book. I hadn’t marked it on Goodreads, so I had to have a look at the end. That’s probably not a good sign.

*I received this ARC via NetGalley in exchange for a honest review*

I didn't mind this book, but the entire way I felt like something was missing... the premise was new and original and I feel like in the hands of another author this could have been great, but there's something I can't quite put my finger on that meant it was lacking...heart.
I don't know... I really wanted to love this but the romance felt a bit flat, the drama felt a bit flat, the political intrigue felt a bit flat, the platonic relationships between characters felt a bit flat... I just ended up not really caring a great deal, which was a shame.

*I received an ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.*
Twice Dead focuses on Naya Garth who comes to Ceramor on her father’s ship. Her father sends her into the town on a trading mission but she is killed in the process. This, however, does not signal the end of the story, but the beginning.
Naya is turned into a wraith, a creature from her childhood nightmares. A wraith is someone who died but is resurrected and their soul bound to their bones. Kind of like a ghost, but she can become corporeal. She is enlisted by a friend of her father’s to become a spy against Ceramor and for her cover she is apprenticed to the necromancer who brought her back from the dead.
While undercover she makes some new friends and falls for another wraith named Corten. With his help she discovers that she is more than just a normal wraith, but that she is in fact a reaper. The reapers are stronger and can project energy where normal wraiths cannot.
Naya soon discovers that she may be spying for the wrong side. Then it is a race against time to stop the plot to overthrow the King of Ceramor and plunge their country into a war.
I really enjoyed this book. The writing was fantastic and the world building was awesome. I will definitely be picking up the next installment in this promising series.

Available now wherever books are sold.

Wonderful book that for me personally, was kind of a coming-of-age story in th esense that the protagonist has to grow up, has to accept herself and learn to navigate a totally new world with skills she has yet to fully understand.
The writing style was very compelling and appropriate for the age group and the characters in the story. I hope to see more amazing books like Seal's!
It's a perfect mix of coming-of-age, mystery, magic and romance!

I requested Twice Dead ready for a surprise. I was positive, because I noticed that sometimes authors from minor publishers gave me amazing books to read. And so I did. 

I cannot say that I'm disappointed but a was expecting a bit more. Now, the novel start without giving you time. If I must name the first chapters, the perfect description would be: that escalated more than quickly. In fact, just few pages from the start and Naya, our main protagonist, gets killed. 

That was a surprise since sometimes I used to blurbs that, despite describing what is going to happen in the first part of the novel, the book  takes even thirty pages to reach the conclusion of the blurb main point. 

What was a little less interesting is how the novel went on. It was a bit slow, I guess. To be honest, I'm one of those readers that doesn't mind at all when the book takes is time to develop the plot, even if it means that the actual juicy stuff is going to happen in the second novel. Anyway, I kinda felt that this was a debut. But also a really generic young adult book for a good chunk of the plot.

Now, far from to say that is a bad thing. First published book aren't easy, and is not like every author have to create the best masterpiece that throw away all the cliché. A perfectly normal book is still very good. Yet, the factor that something has been already written and read many times, may not play well  for the final opinion. But is not the only things that didn't allow me to give this novel an higher rating.

I want to start with what I liked. Despite being minor, I need to inform of the presence of a canon f/f couple, and yes, the couple remain alive. I'm super curious to see how it will be for them in the future. And despite this being a fantasy book, so it means that discrimination may not exist like in our world, it's reported to exist but the whole story of this couple is definitely not based on it, which is great.

Second thing I liked is the necromancy. I'm almost up to every form of necromancy and the idea that a soul can be sing back to life, with runes carved into bones, but that there also different types of undead, is something I loved. I wished to know a little more and maybe some macabre details?

For the rest I've mixed feelings. I'm not exactly the greatest with romance intuitions, and the book also fell  for the cliché "the first boy she meet is the love interest". Is not a thing that deeply disturb me but I'm starting to notice this pattern more and more. And in general I didn't feel the reasons of this romance, but at a certain point they were in love.

Anyway, since I'm kinda used to it and it's some kind of young adult book curse, other things have more weight on my final opinion. One of this is the world building. I think I wasn't super attentive because I felt lost sometimes with all the nations, but also there wasn't something really incisive and predominant that helped to associate the names with something else, aside from the main two nations. During the whole book, there are little details of world building there and there, like the way people dresses in a nation or in another. I grew really curious when in Ceramor it was mentioned the presence of a public service that deeply resemble a tram station.

Another point that I felt like needed more attention was the religious element. Naya expressed a lot of her people views about the necromancy, moving against it and passing a brief moment of refusal towards her resurrection. It's also true that less religous people exist, despite being born and surrender by heavy faith and costumes, but I thought it was an interesting part and I would have loved to know more.

Now, where Corten really didn't interested me that much, I kinda liked Naya. I mean, she's a normal girl who hopes everything in her life goes well, with a lot to learn, but her existence get turned upside down. She's forced to undergo something, even if she felt participant of it. She have no other choice and also to face the moral dilemma of her new being. To be honest, I found her plotline realistic: a young girl, killed and force to be bound to new people and new life, unable to contact her loved ones, that decide to join a cause, follow it and find herself into something bigger. 

Also, when things turn dark, do what she can to resolve the situation. She asked for help but I cannot say that she sat in a corner waiting for things to change or get better. Sometimes she does mistakes and that's normal too. 

By the end of the book I had a moment of "HELL WOOOO GIRL!" because... I cannot say that, okay? It's just that I wasn't expecting such a radical action from Naya and I cannot even say that I'm sorry because... just woooo.

So, Twice Dead is not exactly the most innovative book ever, but is not something I would stay away. I'm gonna look up for the next release and see how the author is gonna work on the sequel and on Naya's development. If the series will get a turn dark of events, which also happened in the end of the first novel, it will get really really really interesting.