Twice Dead is Caitlin Seal’s debut novel and is a luscious and delightful fantasy novel perfect for fans of Susan Dennard and Maria V. Snyder!

The daughter of a sea merchant trader, Naya is undertaking her first solo mission in the necromancer friendly country of Ceramor near her homeland when she is struck down on her way to meet an associate. Murdered in an alleyway, death is not the end for Naya as she awakens a wraith--a ghostly creature bound by runes carved into the bones of her former corpse. Brought back by a necromancer, Naya is recruited to be a spy for her native country and assumes the identity of a servant in order to discover political secrets. Becoming involved in kidnapping and murder isn’t what she signed on for and neither is betraying the young man she’s become to care about. Naya is soon struggling to see out with her mission, but with things not what they seem, the danger to those in Ceramor may be bigger than she ever anticipated…..

I was really impressed with Twice Dead, the first novel in what will be The Necromancer’s Song series by Caitlin Seal. Twice Dead was beautifully written and well-paced, introducing readers to a fantastic paranormal fantasy world of magic and resurrection. The world within the novel was well constructed and the concept of necromancy and the way people were resurrected and tied to their bones through runes and bonds were intriguing. It was fresh concept on Seal’s part and I think it was implemented wonderfully.

The heroine of Twice Dead, Naya, comes from a land that considers the undead monsters and those that resurrect them messing with what the Creator intended. It was intriguing to follow her through her transition from an ordinary girl who wakes up as something she has always thought an abomination to being comfortable in who she now is. Loyal to her country to a fault and a product of the society she was raised in, Ceramor and its inhabitants open Naya’s eyes to the true nature of the undead; making for a lot of confliction and inner turmoil as Naya wages a battle against herself and what she has been taught to be believe.

Personally I liked Naya and thought she was easy to follow. Naya wants to do the right thing and make her father proud, however as the novel progresses she learns a lot and begins to question what she has always known. It’s the growth in Naya that I really appreciated. She shows a lot of promise as the protagonist as she begins to master her abilities as a wraith and embrace who she is.

Naya’s lifeline to her new reality as a wraith comes in the form of Corten, a former necromancer and fellow wraith who helps Naya learn how to harness her abilities and how to survive her needs. Corten becomes a friend to Naya and of course romance blossoms between the two. Honestly, I thought Corten and Naya were really sweet as a couple. They connected well and there was as innocence and sweetness to their relationship.

Twice Dead comes to a heartbreaking ending with hard choices made and developments pushing forward the course of the story. I for one cannot wait to see what Caitlin Seal does next and will be eagerly awaiting the release of the next novel to see how Naya helps those she loves!

Seal has a knack for description and the ability to move the plot along at a decent pace. At times, it seemed that the book offered more questions than answers, and spent too much time answering questions that I didn't really care to have answers to in the first place. There is some decent world building in this first book, but I wonder if the lack of coherence is due to it being part of a series of if the lack is just a fault of the author. I think I will read the second book to see if things improve. Overall, a decent start to a series with an interesting premise.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for the electronic ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I’m so upset. This book had so much potential from the cover and synopsis alone but it just failed to deliver so I had to DNF it 🙈 which makes me feel horrible but I have so many books on my TBR that I don’t have time to finish a book that is not enjoyable to me. I can see a lot of YA Fantasy lovers probably liking this but I just couldn’t get into it unfortunately. I need gripping books.

ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Gosh why did I wait so long to read this? It's sat on my shelf for a while now and I NEEEEEEEED the next book. It reminds me a lot of Sarah J Maas - similar style, slightly dark, very twisty, and you just get lost in the characters they're so vivid. I genuinely loved this book, and while I found the ending frustrating (I need some closure, so I need the next book) my heart wrenched over C, I hated her father as much as she did, and I empathized so much with the split personality she was developing between her two aliases. I can't find one bad thing to say about this book it was that good. More please.

I picked up this book because of the promise of the undead in a scenario other than the zombie apocalypse. Naya, the main character, becomes a wraith by chapter 2. I mean, it's not every day you're pulled into the head of the undead! The first pages were good and the world-building was interesting and original, but the farther I got into the book, the more I found myself having to push myself to read it. The political intrigue that had the potential to make it epic really felt more like talking heads on a political newscast. It will be the right book for some folks, but unfortunately not for me.

Twice Dead is a great debut YA fantasy novel set in a world where necromancy is commonplace and political intrigue abounds! This was a very enjoyable read that is appropriate for younger teens and gives some thought to death and the morality of bringing people back. Naya has grown up in a country that vehemently opposes the use of necromancy, viewing the undead as evil monstrosities. When she embarks on her first mission in Ceramor (where the undead are an integral part of society) she is unexpectedly killed and brought back as a wraith. She is asked to become a spy, but the world of intrigue may be more than she bargained for.

I really enjoyed the development of the magic system in this world. We learn quite a bit about the different kinds of undead and the ways they can use aether. The twists of the plot were pretty easy to figure out, but I'm also not sure they were supposed to be surprising in the first place. It seems more about Naya's arc of growth as a character, and her discovery of these twists. There is also a very sweet friendship turned romance in the story. Overall I thought this was a solid 4-star read in the YA fantasy genre and a strong debut. I would be interested in continuing on with the series! Thank you to the publisher for sending me an unsolicited early copy of this book.

Naya, as a native of Talmir, views necromancy as an abomination. While on a solo mission for her sea captain father, Naya is murdered on the streets of Ceramor, a country that accepts necromancy. She is resurrected as a wraith, a ghostly, undead creature, in order to be a spy for Talmir. However, as she spies on the Ceramor necromancers, she is thrown into a political battle, filled with murders and kidnappings.

Naya's character faces a lot of physical and personal changes, and she goes through a lot of character building. Her narration at the beginning of the novel was child-like, and her voice really matures towards the climax of the plot. She faces a lot of inner-conflict, as the wraith part of her clashes with her loyalty to Talmir. I would have liked to see more of her backstory - maybe some flashbacks with her father in Talmir.

This novel should have been longer, so Caitlin Seal could have put just as much attention on the other characters as she did Naya. The romantic relationship with Corten felt sudden and not well-written, and he felt too perfect and unflawed to be a character. I wanted Corten, Lucia, Valn, and the other supporting characters to have more screen-time so that they could have been better developed.

Apart from more character-building, I wanted more world-building as well. Seal created a very unique world, but needed a bit more to create a more three-dimensional setting. I wanted a deeper historical background on the political tensions between Ceramor and Talmir. I also wish there was greater context on how the magic and how aether worked, how wraiths were resurrected, and more sections describing Naya's journey with magic. The very small sections describing Naya working with magic were very well-written and fun to read.

There was so much potential in this novel - from just reading the synopsis, I was instantly attracted to the unique premise and promising story. However, although I enjoyed Twice Dead and I don't think the story forgettable, this was not amazing.

Twice Dead follows the story of Naya, the daughter of a sea captain who suddenly finds herself dead. But that isn’t the end of her story. Resurrected, she becomes a spy - and set on a mission to save her country. Embroiled in politics, romance and murder, Naya must decide if she can betray the man she’s grown to love to save her country.

I was drawn to this initially because the plot sounded really unique for a YA, and I was intrigued to know how the world building would progress. The descriptions and overall writing are good. We get a decent explanation of how the magical elements in the world work, and what Necromancy can do, without it coming across as too much of a information dump. However, there was definitely scope for more as we don’t really get to see much of the wider world and the reason behind why people dislike necromancy so much. The plot itself is also really slow, and not much really happens for a long time meaning I often found it difficult to keep going. It felt more like a set up for future novels at times too, which I found disappointing.

The characters also aren’t really fleshed out all that well, meaning I didn’t form any kind of lasting impression about any of them. Naya doesn’t really have much of an opinion of her own, rather blindly following the advice and guidance of others rather than making her own assumptions - which I found a little annoying at times. Her potential love interest also felt really cliched and obvious. There’s no subtlety.

There was massive potential here, with such an interesting magical backstory. I just wish I’d enjoyed the characters more.

Firstly thank you so much for this Arc!

I feel terrible but i DNF'ed this at 12%, it just wasnt for me at all, im not saying its a bad book but the fantasy elements werent for me. I couldnt get my head around the necromancy, i wanted to but just couldnt

When Naya died in the first chapter i just thought well this has hit the ground running, they could have built up to that but instead it just happens and is moved on from like its irrelevant

Yep not for me unfortunately

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
I had high hopes for this book. Necromancers are able to resurrect people by carving runes into certain bones. The story revolves around a girl, Naya, who is sent to a city on a mission by her father and is murdered. Naya is resurrected as a wraith and made into a spy in order to help people in the city.
I didn’t really establish a connection to any of the characters, which was disappointing considering the premise was so promising. Naya needed to have more spirit in her actions, and I wish there had been a little more backstory to her foundation and her beliefs. I didn’t really get a chance to understand her motives aside from vague references to what her homeland believed.
For some reason I had trouble keeping myself interested in the story. I feel like the plot was trudging along at times, and because I didn’t find myself attached to any of the characters, I didn’t care what happened to them.

My actual rating of this book is 2.5 Stars

When I first heard about this book, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. I mean, the cover is just beautiful and it intrigued me. I had to know more. So when I read the synopsis, that sealed it for me. I had to pick up this book and see what adventure would lie ahead for me.

Twice Dead is a unique and refreshing story. I haven't read very many YA books that deal with Necromancy. So, I was really intrigued by this one and couldn't wait to see what direction this story was going to go. I think this story started off well and had some great potential, however somewhere along the line, it just fell flat. This story focused a lot and I mean a lot on character development, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, I just found myself struggling to connect with them. And since there was so much focus on the character development, I feel like the plot ended up suffering because of it. I needed more. I need more background. I needed more actual plot. I needed to see the story move in some direction. 

I had kind of a love/hate relationship with this story. The plot was really interesting and I loved how unique it was. But, it just wasn't enough for me. As I said before, I do think this story has potential, but in the end, I just needed more. Even though this story didn't work for me, I'm still glad to have given it a try.

I liked this one, but I didn’t love it. It was, good, but I probably wouldn’t buy it because it wasn’t something I connected with.

From the description, this book seemed like the kind of jam I'd hunker down and demolish in one YA-gobbling frenzy. Strong female heroine? Check. Paranormal world/themes? Check. Action and political intrigue? Check. Romance? Check.

In reality... this book was one resounding "meh". At the outset, I was hooked. Our main character Naya "waking up" dead after spending her life being taught to despise and fear the resurrected was such a neat concept. But I found that things only went downhill after that. Naya proved to be a pretty frustrating and half-baked lead. I feel as though so much time was spent trying to set up the complicated politics and explain the magic behind the necromancy, that I found myself knowing very little (and thus caring very little) about the characters I was supposed to root for.

The same goes for the love interest in the book. Without giving too much away, there's a significant event involving Naya's beau that was surely intended to pack an emotional wallop, but left me feeling indifferent- because we knew so little about him, and his relationship with Naya was so underdeveloped.

Overall, despite my problems with the book, the story was inventive, and the details that were gleaned about the characters were well-written. Am I eager to read Book #2? Not really. Would I be willing to give the next chapter in the series a chance? Sure!

(Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.)

I loved the idea underlying this story, and I knew from the blurb that there would be a love interest, but I was prepared to deal with that if it was handled properly. Unfortunately, it was not. This author seemed to me like she'd read a score of YA female-authored books preparatory to writing her own, and unfortunately chose as exemplars the most egregious examples of unimaginative teen trope clichéd YA garbage that's out there.

Worse, instead of deciding she would write something different and blaze her own trail in this genre, she did her best to clone those other books by making her female main character a limp rag of a girl who has no backbone (even before she was resurrected as a wraith) and then putting in your typical, predictable, boring, trope, studly, muscular guy to validate and rescue this maiden in distress. He was even wearing armor (after a fashion!) - and oh yes, he has the mandatory gold flecks in his eyes. "Corten knelt in front of her, his gold-flecked eyes wide with shock." Barf.

If I've read that golf fleck garbage in one YA book I've read it in ten million of them. I'm now at the point where I refuse to read any further in one of these books if that phrase appears because I am so sick of reading it. Sure enough, it reared its ugly gold-flecked head at seventeen percent in and that's where I quit reading. The book was already starting to go downhill before then though.

The harbinger of this decline was when the female necromancer inexplicably couldn't help Naya, and had to take her to one of her ex-students who could help her, and of course he was predictably the trope male love interest. I knew this was exactly what was going to happen as soon as this referral was mentioned, and sure enough, it did. She goes all wilts and vapors on him so he can manhandle her which is another nauseating YA trope.

Is this the kind of hero female authors truly want their readers to admire: someone who has no motivation or self-possesion and is merely a plaything of a manly man's man of a rescuer? I know that's not true because I've read a lot of truly well-written YA books about strong female characters - and strong does not necessarily mean they can kick ass. That;s why it saddens me that os many female authors take this path that's not only most-traveled, it's been flattened into meaninglessness by the desperate tramp of so many YA authors' blind and blundering feet.

This girl has been sailing with her father in his trading ship for some time, yet she has no sense of command or power. She's just a little girl, and it felt so inauthentic that it lost suspension of disbelief for me. Any girl who had been doing that would have a lot more about her than this one did; then she finds her father effectively sold her out and she's neither very much upset nor very angry?"
I have no idea if this is how this story went after I quit reading, nor do I care what happened to these characters having read as much as I did, but to me it seemed quite obvious at that point that she was being tricked, but she was too stupid to figure it out. It seemed obvious that Valn is the bad guy; that he was the one who arranged her to be killed so he could resurrect her and make use of her; that the letter from her father is forged. Like I say, I have no idea if any of this is true, but given how much trope I'd read already, that's how it seemed laid out to me.

I was about ready to go on a quest of my own: seeking anti-nausea medication at this point, my feeling of revulsion was so strong. Are there no new female YA authors with any imagination? Do they honestly not want to write outside trope? Can they not see beyond what's already been written ten-score (or more à propos, scoreless) times? Do they not want to explore something new? A new type of female main character? A different type of male love interest? It beggars the imagination how completely lacking in originality these authors are.

The bottom line is that this novel, while superficially striving for originality, was an awful clone and I cannot recommend it based on what I read, because I've read this same story ad nauseam. This is nothing new and it brings nothing new to the table.

Really enjoyed this book. Naya has very strong character development throughout the book and it does a great job of putting a new spin on the concept of reapers and the undead. Highly recommend.

A very interesting, creative read. I can't wait to read the next in the series.

It took me a couple of tries to get into the book , but once I was able to give it all of my attention, I flew through it.

I enjoyed this book way more than I thought I would. It kind of reminded me of my all time favorite book, The Hobbit, which might have made me a little biased. Naya gets killed early on in this story, however for her, death isn't the end. She is resurrected by a necromancer and gets drawn into a plot concocted by an ambassador from her home country. From there, she has to decide which side she is on and who she can trust. Corten is one of the people she has to figure out. He was the former apprentice to her current master and his agenda doesn't match up with her initial one. The romance between the two didn't feel all that real and was really predictable, however he did have good intentions so I admired him for that. Speaking of romance, two of the characters were homosexual. I liked that the author was able to incorporate that into her story. It did end somewhat on a cliffhanger and I will definitely read the next book!

G to PG rated book- language, deaths and fighting
The book starts out with Naya a young girl trying to win the acceptance of her father sets off on a errand for him that leads to her death and resurrection. She is attacked at the door of her destination and falls to the ground When she wakes she finds herself in a strange place with strange people and her clothes are gone. She is told she's undead, a wraith and it to used to help save them all. Ah but things aren't that easy she must learn how to be a wraith and pass a couple tests. So the book goes into what she must learn. On top of her new death her father left before she woke, she is treated like a vermin and she has no good options if she can't make it There is a possible romance building, possible.
I loved the undead/wraith storyline, it was interesting and had many new ideas added to an old myth. I wish there would have been more story and less character development. It felt like I was just following Naya around as she went back and forth collecting her wraith lessons and never really went anywhere else. There were hints of something and then it went back to the same old story. I didn't like the way this book was written I was bored, tired of Naya and her small world. There was too much inner dialog, not enough action, too many useless detailed information dumps. I didn't find enough interest to continue this series
I received this book for an honest review

DNF
It didn't work for me, writing is not my type nor characters attracted me.
Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a digital arc in exchange for an honest Review!

So Twice Dead was quite the interesting read.
It was such a different, unqiue twist on necromancers so I was so excited to read this, but it definitely had a few flaws. The plot at first was hard for me to get into, but about 25% into the book it really picked up pace. The plot is interesting and the ending hit me in the feels and I'm really not happy about it in a crush my feelings good way.
The main character (Naya) was not love for me, but she definitely grew and im excited to see where it goes. my favorite character though was probably Corten he really saved the book for me.
The world building is what I really hope grows I felt like with more writing and growth this series could be amazing not just a good or pretty good read, none the less I will be reading the next ones and would recommend them to others! I'll post a full review of this book in my blog for those interested!