Voyage of the Damned was pitched to me as a queer, magical murder mystery on a ship—all things I notoriously love, so I was excited to dive in, and even more stressed to realize the January release date for the book was only for the UK. So thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing and Netgalley for this eARC for my honest review on this book!

The general premise behind the world of this book is daunting: a nation with twelve provinces, represented by different animals, each has a representative called a Blessed, each given a gift from the Goddess that is passed down from parent to progeny meant to help lead their province. Once all twelve Blessed in a generation are identified, they make a journey—alone—on a ship to a remote mountain.

Only this time, someone starts picking them off, one by one.

I'll be honest, I was nervous as I am any time I open a book and it starts with a map. I love a large cast of characters as much as (if not more than) the next reader, but coming in knowing that (particularly in a murder mystery) I need to keep track of twelve primary characters, I was worried—not many authors can successfully not make that all feel like alphabet soup.

However, the author's ability to write distinct, interesting characters and attaching them each to an animal somehow made it not such a heavy task. I'll admit that I rolled my eyes a little with each outlandish character description (hair every color of the rainbow, overly disparate styles that made me sometimes feel the world was not cohesive), but it helped me keep track of the Blessed as they were killed off.

The concept of the Blessed (and their Blessings) was something I particularly loved about this book and felt was handled in an original way, with some characters keeping Blessings a secret—as they align with their true character—allowing the concept to feed into the mystery. A particular twist in the back half of the book really hit this one home, and I think the way the author balanced the web of characters and their abilities was extremely tactful.

As a result, the actual solve to the murder mystery was extraordinarily satisfying as a reader. I had my suspicions! And I was wrong! And so happy to be! The author laid the groundwork that the solve didn't entirely come out of nowhere, but still made it that the reader would be surprised. A perfect balance.

(Even if the culprit explaining it out beat by beat in a later scene was a little on the nose.)

That being said, the post-mystery solution felt a little rushed, and the overall ending left a few plot holes that I have questions about that I wish we'd taken a little more time on. A few loose ends in the way the world ends up after several of its leaders are massacred is...a little rough, but didn't leave me with a total sour taste.

My other struggle with this book is that I did not always love our protagonist, Dee. The "Blessed" from Fish Province—who is actually a liar and never received his father's Blessing, presumably because it went to a bastard—was sometimes so outlandish and childish he felt more at home in a middle grade novel despite this book otherwise often feeling quite adult. This ties into the tonal dissonance in the aesthetics with each province—there were times I didn't entirely know what genre of book I was in, or what to make of my setting because of it.

That being said, I had a thoroughly great time with this adventure—and the quiet, dedicated romance that ran through it.

The world building in this book was super interesting and the magic of Concordia felt very immersive. I love a good fantasy stand alone book and this one definitely delivered as a debut novel. I do believe there is some potential for more interconnected books due to the characters being super interesting. There is a good amount of humor in this book which makes the reading experience more enjoyable but there is also some more underlying depth to the characters that you have to dig at. Typically I am a romance/romantasy reader and I do not think this quite falls into that realm it is more of a high fantasy with some romantic subplots. There is a ton of representation within this book which is super exciting to see especially within a fantasy novel.

Fantasy genre mixed with locked room murder mystery and sparkled with great humor! What a fun read it was! This book made me giggle and kept me guessing who did it throughout the whole book. This book is also character-driven and I loved them all! Each character was unique and had a big personality. This one was such a refreshing read!!
Hope more people will read this book soon!

Fantasy is 100% my favorite genre, but I enjoy dabbling in locked-room mysteries and Voyage of the Damned was a perfect combination of the two! The main character, Ganymedes, is truly the unlikeliest of heroes and I loved him for that, even if his personality was a little grating (he was doing it on purpose, so I forgive him!). The author did an exceptional job juggling 12 very distinct characters and their magical abilities and I was kept guessing basically up until the big reveal. Overall, I’m very impressed and would love to read more books in this vein!

I ordered myself a fancy Waterstones exclusive edition with the fancy gold and edges and all of the things.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin for the ARC.

(3.5 stars rounded up)

Dee is one of the Blessed and on a boat ride to a ceremony to celebrate all the Blessed (kids with special powers to help their country). People start dying and secrets start coming out. This book has a somewhat complicated magic system and honestly it was a little hard to follow combined with the numerous provinces, powers, province animal/character name (used interchangeably), and their hair colors (that supposedly tell you where people are from). I couldn’t decide if I like Dee and his sarcasm, jokes and relationship with some of the Blessed, or hated him and his obsession with food, constant drama and weirdly being turned on by things in weird situations. I enjoyed the murder-mystery aspect (a la “And Then There Were None” but with superpowers) but some parts of the backstory and lore of this magic situation were just a little hard to follow. A bit of the romance felt super rushed and like Dee just would fall in love with anyone, but that made sense later. I think that relationship was maybe the most interesting aspect of the book.

Thanks to NetGalley & Frances White for allowing me to read and review this!

Unfortunately, I had to DNF this one. I was super intrigued by the premise, it seemed like a really fun twist on a closed-room (ship?) murder mystery. However, I had a really difficult time relating to the writing style and characters. Although marketed as more of an adult novel, to me it read more middle-grade. I felt as though the characters lacked depth and I felt more apathy and annoyance to them rather than interest and care, despite the variety of ages and backgrounds. The lore was super well developed and it's clear that a lot of effort was put into creating this world, each providence and the history behind each.
Although I seem to not be the target audience for this novel, I can see it being a great fit for a large variety of readers.

I didn’t particularly like the last 15% or so (the big reveal, the final twist, the villain speech, etc) and none of the characters really felt like people except for Dee and Grasshopper. But I liked the messy politics and picking sides and who was more important and Dee. Dee gave the story heart with his humor, his genuine goodness, and yes even his self loathing. I think this book could have benefited from having the characters interact together more either in a group or directly one on one with Dee instead of all his deductions coming from flashbacks. Also the hair colors as sole and definitive indicator of what providence the characters were from felt kinda tacky

I landed on a middle of the road grade for Voyage of the Damned by Frances White, because there were 5 star aspects but also 1 start aspects. I enjoyed the very tongue in cheek writing, which lent a lot of humor to the story and made me love the MC and his little sidekicks. 5 stars for Grasshopper and Dumpling! And I thought there were some really interesting concepts in terms of the world and magic. Sadly though, these things weren't explored and I had too many unanswered questions in terms of the world building.

Although I love a locked door who dun it mystery, this one was too long without much happening. I was invested once I was in - which took awhile as the writing skews very young, not adult - but it did get awfully repetitive in the middle, with too much being quickly resolved at the end. But without giving me all the answers I was hoping for. The main murder plot was resolved, but I wanted so much to know what happened next with the surviving characters and their world! Which was only given a couple ending pages.

“Voyage of the damned” is a unique fantasy journey with magical characters and murder mystery themes. Sounds like a random concoction to throw together but somehow it works.

I will say that this book takes a little while to get into, and reads more like a YA novel, however once you push past the first bit the rest of the ride is pretty enjoyable.

What drew me to this book was the reference to Agatha Christie’s whodunnit style of writing, although there are similar themes, there is also lots of humour in this book so it is not one to take too seriously.

My overall thoughts are I did enjoy this book. I do think it could have benefited from some extra editing to tighten things up a little, maybe dropping a few characters to keep from confusing the reader with all that was going on. Nevertheless I recommend giving this one a go as you will likely have a fun time reading.

Thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing, Fances White and NetGalley for the EARC!

Publish date: August 20th

I was such a huge fan of Agatha Christie when I was younger (I still am today), so reading a fantasy murder mystery was a lot of fun for me! I love anything fantasy related, so I ate this up.

This was an enjoyable read and I had a hard time putting this down!

This book was categorized as fantasy, but the fantasy world did not seem well researched with a lot of flaws in the timelines. This book did not seem like an adult fantasy and it fell a little flat for me.

3.5 but I am rounding up.
The amount of main characters in this book really threw me.
It became a bit hard to keep track of I’m not going to lie.
It had a lot of humor, but also a lot of plot.
While the world building isn’t the most complex I have read, and it did take me a LOT to get into the book at the beginning, it was entertaining and I loved the body positivity in it.
I don’t think this fits in the target audience of older readers, as it feels far more YA, yes there are a few “bad words” and some romantic situations, it’s definitely not a full adult romance novel in my opinion.
All in all it was an ok read, I think it’s a good starting point but the writing can definitely be a bit more complex, and instead of over explaining menial details, the world building could use a lot more focus.

For a murder mystery book, this sure was a fun and whimsical read. I found Dee to be absolutely delightful, especially his relationship with Grasshopper. Man did I love Grasshopper. Initially I was a bit overwhelmed with how many characters there were, but I quickly got to know each of them (and this isn't REALLY a spoiler, because murder mystery, but the body count definitely helped me keep track of who was who) and they all had distinct personalities and goals.

I loved the sense of humor that was prevalent throughout the book, even if I do think it detracted from the... I guess maturity of the cast? I kept forgetting most of the characters were late 20s to early 30s. Definitely not a YA book, but also not adult fantasy. Maybe adult-lite. Overall, I flew through this and thoroughly enjoyed myself the entire time.

Yikes, I DNFed this one real quick. This book should have been pitched as a Middle Grade. The main character was super annoying, throwing finger guns on the first page was a choice. It also felt like the setting switched between a 21st century contemporary and a medieval fantasy, sometimes within the same page. We have magical brightly colored ancestral hair and a medieval monarchy, but we see them eat hot dogs and poutine? That took me right out of the story.

I see some reviewers have enjoyed this book. If you don’t mind a wacky fun plot, this book may be for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and MIRA for this ARC.

I absolutely adored this book!

A murder mystery in a fantasy world where our main character is a fish out of water (pun intended) and even though he doesn’t fit in, does everything he can to save his fellow passengers and solve the mystery.

I don’t want to spoil things so I’ll try to keep things vague as possible. First, Dee is a wonderful character. He’s just a good person and seeing his motivation to be good override his fear of his secret being found out is so well done. He’s easy to root for!

The rest of the cast I won’t mention to try and keep things spoiler free but I did love the rest of them too!

The twists in this book were excellent. There were a few times where I put down the book and said, “Well that one got me!” That’s the fun thing about a mystery in a magical world, anything can happen!

A great read, and a satisfying end that left me smiling and wanting to hug each of the characters. So much heart went into this book, and I felt the love for the story and characters on every single page.

Wow. This book was a goddamned DELIGHT.

"Gay magical murder cruise" is a pretty accurate pitch tbh, but it doesn't really capture how much *more* there is to this book. (I cannot adequately express the depths of my desire for a dragon servant named Dumpling.)

It's written in the POV of Ganymedes ("Dee") Piscero, aka Fish, aka Pissfish, who has instantly become one of my favorite protagonists ever: he's the reluctant heir to an unimportant fishing province who masks both his innate kindness and his self-loathing in irreverent clownishness. He's chubby, anxious, imperfect, and 100% relatable -- the kind of hero the world could use more of.

I won't rehash the plot here, but suffice to say that the worldbuilding is rich and fascinating, the characters are diverse and all highly distinctive, and the pacing is relentless in the best possible way. A genre-blending smorgasbord, *Voyage of the Damned* somehow manages to be hilarious and poignant and sad and bloody and kind and triumphant and cathartic all at once. It's what you'd get if you threw Agatha Christie and Terry Pratchett into a blender, with perhaps a dash of The Goblin Emperor and some Legends & Lattes for good measure.

Frances White has pulled off a masterful debut and I can't wait to see what she writes next.

Short Synopsis:
Dee is one of the Blessed…or at least he’s pretending to be. In Concordia, the land is broken up into 12 provinces, and each province is led by a Blessed - a person gifted with magic from their goddess. The 12 blessed are on a boat to their sacred mountain. But then bodies start piling up.

My Thoughts:
This was a fun read. Mysteries and settings on boats, normally aren’t my cup of tea. But this was fun. Dee is funny and quirky and lovable.

But the real star of the show is 6-year-old Grasshopper. She was the cutest.

I found this to be a bit on the longer side, but the character growth, the mystery and plot was excellent.

Read if You Like:
🛥️ Locked Room Mysteries
🛥️ Blend of Genres
🛥️ LGBTQIA Rep
🛥️ Body Positivity
🛥️ Magic
🛥️ Friends to lovers

𝘔𝘶𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘔𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘺 • 𝘍𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘺 • 𝘙𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 • 𝘘𝘶𝘦𝘦𝘳

This one surprised me so much! I don’t know why I thought it was going to be a pirates story, which I do also like, but which this very much was not. I think it was Illumicrate’s beautiful endpapers of the Dragon’s Dawn [not pirate] ship that got me confused.

I would class Voyage of the Damned as a light fantasy novel, with a very easy to grok system of magic. But it’s more than that because it’s also a Mystery/Thriller whodunnit story in the style of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Just make it far, far less serious ☠️😂.

If whimsical, dry humor, sarcasm, slow burn light queer romance, or murder mystery is your thing, you are going to want to pick up this book. Honestly Frances White had me at the dedication page: “𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘮 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨.” 🥹🫶

The main character Dee is such a kind hearted, humble soul who for his whole life has been taught he was worthless... so when he’s suddenly stuck on a ship with an incredibly eclectic cast of characters of course no one sees him as either a threat or a strong ally, other than the other “weaker” crew members. The plot of the book centers around figuring out what magical powers each of the 12 passengers has and also who is killing everyone before Dee bites the dust himself. I’ll just say that there were things I saw coming, but most of it I was wrong about. At one point or another I think I suspected everyone. 🤣

I just loved this story. It brought my two loves of locked room murder mysteries and fantasies together in the best package. As Dee’s backstory got revealed bit by bit I wanted to cry for him! He felt unloved, unwanted, and was so sick of lying… and so sick of living.

This was funny, full of heart, diverse!!!! and the characters were lovable.

A murder mystery to the nth degree with many fantastical twists and turns. Highly recommend!