Even though I searched for the dark and bleak, I was always up for a lighthearted reprieve. And Blake delivers vampires, demons, angels, ghosts, Death (and his grandson), and much more to make up the most unserious cast of characters ever. Yes, there are mysteries and betrayals, with life and death stakes, but there’s also banter, quips, and a number of shenanigans to keep the mood light.

This one wasn't perfect, but it still blew me away with its deeper themes, love story, and deep character development. It unfolded like a delicate flower with each piece of the story creating a world that exists right where others can't see.

The story follows a few different characters. There's Fox D'Mora, the mortal godson of Death who swindles innocent people by pretending to be a medium. There's Viola Marek, a vampire real estate agent who is trying to sell a haunted house. These are the two main characters of the story, but as you get further into it, there's even more being revealed. From angels to grim reapers to demons to werewolves and the like, this book takes all the different myths and legends from different cultures and history and brings them to one story with one very big plot point: there's a game that immortals play and the only rule is don't lose.

While I enjoyed the story immensely and Olivie Blake has a hold on me with her writing, I found the plot to be a little bit clunky. It starts off with Viola trying to sell the haunted house, but then diverges into this entire story about the immortal game. And while both of them could have been great stories on their own that could have resulted in two books, it felt weird to have them together in one story. However, that isn't to say what I read was lacking. It still offered some beautiful characters that I couldn't help but fall in love with.

That's the great thing about Olivie Blake's writing. Her characters are always so enriched with human faults and characteristics that you can find yourself within them. It was the driving force of this story for me. I read because I wanted to find out more about the game and the mystery behind the haunted house, but I also read because of Fox, Viola, Brandt, Death, and the others.

It's not my favorite from Olivie Blake, but it definitely ranks up there and I will continue to enjoy every single word she writes.

I have officially become a Olivie Blake fan. I love her writing style. Her stories are unique and her characters are realistic.

I am so thankful to Tor Books, Netgalley, and Olivia Blake for granting me both digital and physical access to this twisty thriller before it published on August 8, 2023.

I really liked this one! I think this will come after Atlas six for me because the characters were so great and I loved the writing style in this one. Olivie is amazing!

Thank you Netgalley and Tor for providing me with this book in exchange for a review.

3.75
I will have to admit that I went into this book with a bit of apprehension but I'm happy to report I was pleasantly surprised!
While this book deals with many relationships (romantic, platonic, familiar, etc.), I truly adored Death's and Fox's dynamic and how their bond evolved throughout the story.
I do have to point out however, that the amount of characters and side characters this book presents sometimes makes them one-toned, and I did find the book a bit repetitive at times which made it drag a bit.

MASTERS OF DEATH by Olivie Blake
Release Date: August 8

"𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗴𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗺𝗺𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆.
𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲: 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲."

MoD felt very much like an Olivie Blake book while simultaneously being very different than her books I've read so far. I read it soon after reading her short stories and it was the perfect progression (if I do say so myself).

I made it a little over 50%, and I just lost interest.

The writing is beautiful, intelligent, funny, and descriptive. It reminded me of Good Omens when I began reading.

I enjoyed Death's POV, and I liked the other characters enough to keep going. But then, Death stepped out of the way, and other characters took the reigns for telling this story and their stories. And there are A LOT of characters. So, while I really enjoyed the writing, it all became too much for me, and I began to confuse the characters and lose the point of the story.

This was my first book by this author. The premise was so unique, and the wit was sharp. But it overwhelmed me, and I had to DNF. For the vast potential of this book, though, I still give it 3⭐️.

As always, I genuinely appreciate Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advanced ebook copy of this book.

DNF. I really liked the premise but the writing did not work for me at all. It wouldn't be fair to the book if I finished reading and gave it a low rating.

DNF @ 34%. This had such a fun premise and a good blend of characters, but the book was so complicated and messy. While I really enjoyed The Atlas Six, Masters of Death almost has *too many* characters for Blake's usual style to work well. There were tons of fun quippy lines and lots of good character development, the actual pace of the story just dragged and kept me from being interested. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free advance copy.

Unfortunately, this book was really not for me. I've been keen to try one of Blake's works for a while, especially after all the hype I saw for The Atlas Six, but when it came down to it, I was incredibly underwhelmed.

The key issue is the writing - the prose is extremely overladen, especially with descriptives that do nothing to actually give you a sense of what they describe, and often also with... what I can only describe as what feel like thesaurus substitutions rather than words the author would authentically use or choose, what was suited to the moment. There is an overwhelming sense throughout the book of a need to prove itself, to /seem/ ever so smart, that was constantly let down by the actual substance. Characters will give you a dramatic paragraph of "wisdom" and it will be vacuous or trite.

Which is not the least of the problems with the character dialogue. Much of the story involves what can only be described as "bickering". I'm sure it's intended to be witty, cutting banter, but because of the aforementioned lack of substance and need to make the prose sound like a smart person, it fails to achieve that. It's just a lot of annoying people talking past each other, and it takes up so, so much page space, slowing down the pacing to an absolute crawl, and never really giving us much insight into the characters as people. It's extremely repetitive, and I found myself wanting to skip ahead past it because I already knew all of this and it was just so dull. And so all the characters feel incredibly flat, and what little you know of them has no appeal, either for them being good people to follow, or interesting assholes whose stories you want to know. There's no allure to anything.

The dialogue also crowds out any real explanation of worldbuilding or plot, so you only get the bare bones, and those are, frankly, a mess. Nothing fits neatly together or feels thoroughly worked through. It never feels like anything besides the character dialogue is meant to be the priority, and when the dialogue is so shoddy, it means everything else falls apart in the meantime.

Ultimately, this is a rather badly constructed book, with no appeal in the characters, prose, dialogue, plot or worldbuilding, and with an enduring sense of needing to show off just how terribly smart it is, while being nothing of the sort.

After really loving “One for My Enemy,” I’m now fully on board for any books by Olive Blake. So I was super excited when I saw that Tor was re-publishing another book from her back catalog. Plus, the concept of a bunch of supernatural beings all hanging out together and trying to outwit death just sounds like a super fun premise for an urban fantasy story! And while I didn’t love this one quite as much as “One for My Enemy,” it was still a great read overall.

First of all, I do think that the summary of this book given above does mislead radars a bit into thinking that this is primarily Viola’s story. And while she is definitely a main character, probably the second biggest one I would say, I think this is largely Fox’s story. His is the emotional stakes that are truly at the heart of the building conflict with regards to Death and the impossible game that he and the other supernatural beings play. And while I was a bit confused due to this misconception, once I understood the direction things were moving, I was fully on board. Fox, simply put, is a fantastic character in his own right. A snarky, damaged man, a human who has lived his entire life in a supernatural world that he only halfway belongs to, Fox’s story is one of deep-formed loves, both romantic and familial, for beings who only halfway understand him.

I also enjoyed the manner in which this story was told, though I do think that this may be a hit-or-miss aspect of the story for different readers. Similarly to “One for My Enemy,” the story is told in a non-linear manner, with chapters jumping forward and backward in time, sometimes centuries backward. However, I really liked the way these were all strung together. There would be a brief mention of some quirk of a character, and then the story would jump back in the next chapter to show a greater insight into that character’s experiences. You definitely have to be willing to go with the flow, allowing the story to move away from the main plotline at any given moment.

I also really liked the supernatural beings we met and the ways that Blake twisted familiar concepts and beings around from what we typically expect to see. Her take on demons, angels, and even Death himself are all very fresh feeling. Similarly, Viola, a vampire, is not the “Dracula”-like character that we are familiar with, but instead draws from other vampiric myths. I really enjoyed all of these supernatural creatures (and there were a lot of them!), especially as Blake tied their stories to very human arcs of love, betrayal, trust and family.

I will say, however, that there were times when I felt like Blake could have benefitted from a bit more of an editorial touch. Look, she has a great talent for snarky banter, and I absolutely devoured much of it. But there were also times where I felt like the actual pacing of the story was bogged down by pages and pages of almost unbroken banter. I get that she has a real talent in this area, and none of the actual dialogue itself was bad; in fact, almost all of it was excellent! But this was definitely a case of too much of a good thing, at points. A bit of trimming would have made the whole thing read more smoothly and, even better, highlighted the true talent for dialogue she has, rather than perhaps over-exposing readers at times.

As I said, I really enjoyed this book! I think it could have benefitted from a bit of editing and, perhaps, a better explanation of how exactly the game that Death plays works. But overall, it was a really fun read, and I blew through it in only two or three sit-downs. If you’re a fan of paranormal or urban fantasies, this is definitely one to check out!

Rating 8: Quirky and fast-paced, Blake draws readers into a paranormal world full of undead creatures who, nonetheless, live lives packed to the brim with love and loss.

(Link will go live Aug 19)

DNF @ 42%

This is the fifth book I’ve read by Olivie Blake and while I enjoyed (or was at least enjoyed enough to want to read the next in the series) all of the others, this was the first that I could not get through. The plot is incredibly intriguing but the writing style was incredibly difficult to get through. It felt like it was trying way too hard and it made it difficult to follow. The timelines were confusing and the interludes were too numerous. I don’t mind a difficult plot or non-linear storytelling but the usage here felt scatterbrained rather than effective. I think the same plot could have been thoroughly enjoyable with tighter editing.

I’m definitely going to read more of Blake’s books in the future, but this one was not for me.

Thank you to the NetGalley and the publisher for the gifted eARC!

★ 3.25 / 5

This was technically my second read through of Masters of Death. The first time I was pressed for time and sped through the book, which ultimately left me disappointed. I felt as if the plot moved too quickly and did not lay out the context of this world/plot sufficiently. I went into this reread for the Tor version hoping that my better, less rushed environment would allow me to enjoy this story more, especially after the 5/5 beauty that was One For My Enemy. Alas, I had the exact opposite experience where it took FOREVER to get through this reread, so I think my feelings are simply neutral on this book.

My biggest problem via Masters of Death stems from the numerous POVs throughout the course of the book. Whereas with Alone With You in the Ether and One For My Enemy we have key characters to guide the overarching story, the sheer amount of characters in MOD led the writing to be overstaurayed. I could not feel super connected to any one character because within the next instant I'm with Vi or Fox or Mayra—even Raphael or Gabriel POVs. I wish this book focused solely on four characters: Fox, Brandt, Tom, and Viola. The other characters can certainly be there, but by adding in their small side plots, I was overwhelmed and lost connections to those main four.

Now because I didn't connect with any of the characters because their screen time was cut short—I did not care about the game. I did not feel the stakes, and plenty of times I actually did not understand what was going on. The game was made for immortals. It is based off of memories, manipulated fake memories, and based off of the emotion turmoil/reactions (usually regret) of said memories/fake memories, the player will either win, lose, or tie (side note: I still don't understand at all how a tie happens). People who win can request from Death something within his gifting capabilities, but he's technically never lost, only tied. People who lose end up losing something precious to them like Brandt losing a bit of his life force and paying it to the Underworld. This game should be for people who have nothing left to lose, but oftentimes, we all have some baggage left to lose.

With this second reread, I focused more on the games description to have a better comprehension of it, and I've come to the conclusion that the game doesn't matter. Maybe that's the point of the book. We are meant to care about the characters and their emotions, but the game is nonsense. Its lack of instructions/how-to-play is merely to show its ultimate unimportance, which annoys me because the whole story is based on this gambling game. The final third of the book is dedicated to the game and characters playing it, but again, I'm distracted by the instructions of the game so much that part of the emotional toll is lost to me, especially when it's strangers playing one another. Lainey and Fox playing was just random. And also Tom Parker (the original ancestor) feeling regret for his actions felt surface level. I only care about the fourth Tom, our chaotic mansion ghost, so this reveal felt like a miss too. I need more focus on the leads and less on the background noise.

In terms of the parts that kept me going, Olivie's banter' dialogue is always great. She excels at creating dynamic conversations between characters, and i adored the initial setting of this world. A vampire trying to sell a mansion that had its previous owner murdered? Iconic! A godson of Death torn over his scorned lover? Double iconic! There's so much potential in the first third of this book, but it starts to crumble around the halfway to middle portion for me. Again, I don't dislike this book. I'm neutral. If you don't mind any of the stuff I've talked about, then you'll probably adore this book. It has Olivie's charms for sure, but this book in particular failed to move me unlike her others.

Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I definitely find Olivie Blake’s work across to be the board to slowly reel me in from the start and not let go of me until I hit the end and things fall into place. While initially I was a little bewildered regarding where this story was going to go, things slowly started to coalesce and the pace picked up a bit. I like how it came together; while it’s mixed parts on the nose and bits to chew on when it comes to the theme, it did make for an interesting tale overall. Plus, the cast of characters was definitely a nice varied range of individuals who each stood out just enough (and not just because of their actual supernatural profile) to snag my interest! Definitely another feather in Blake's cap, and can't wait to read more of her work.

After weeks of trying to read it... this is going to be book I will not finish because I cannot muster up the energy to keep reading. I think this book started off strong because I really was immediately hooked especially with Death talking in the first chapter... it kept me hooked for the first 20% and then I was just waiting for the plot to start.

And then 50% of it went by and still the plot is just starting? Like why is it taking so long? And what's with these characters that COULD be likeable even with their flaws but instead they're all just annoying and forced together to be even more annoying to give this facade of found family but in fact, they're all just kind of hating each other and the vibe just isn't there?

I feel like I really would have liked it if it wasn't for the characters becoming unbearable so quickly and the fact that the plot is taking 30000 years to develop.

I guess Olivie's fantasy books are just unfortunately not for me despite me trying every single book of hers and so far only somewhat enjoying atlas six.