Voyage of the Damned

by Frances White

A mind-blowing murder mystery on a ship full of magical passengers. If Agatha Christie wrote fantasy, this would be it!

For a thousand years, Concordia has maintained peace between its provinces. To mark this incredible feat, the emperor’s ship embarks upon a twelve-day voyage to the sacred Goddess’s Mountain. Aboard are the twelve heirs of the provinces of Concordia, each graced with a unique and secret magical ability known as a Blessing.

All except one: Ganymedes Piscero—class clown, slacker and all-around disappointment.

When a beloved heir is murdered, everyone is a suspect. Stuck at sea and surrounded by powerful people and without a Blessing to protect him, Ganymedes’s odds of survival are slim.

But as the bodies pile higher, Ganymedes must become the hero he was not born to be. Can he unmask the killer and their secret Blessing before this bloody crusade reaches the shores of Concordia?

Or will the empire as he knows it fall?

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery, Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Romance, Audiobook

498 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 18, 2024

About the author

Born in Leicester and now residing in Nottingham, Frances is an English Literature and Creative Writing graduate from Royal Holloway University of London.

She has a soft spot for writing unlikely, flawed, messy heroes and loves mixing humour and heartbreak. She is an advocate for fat positivity and queer representation in fiction.

When not writing, Frances can be found sewing nerdy costumes for comic conventions or researching obscure historical facts.

Her debut novel Voyage of the Damned is best described as a magical gay murder cruise.

Reviews

[EmmaSkies]

DNF @ 24%, 110 pages

Hooo boy I had so many issues with this.
(Edit April 2025: It's actually insane how often I have to reiterate how the internet works on my negative reviews, but here goes... *taps mic* ENGAGING WITH REVIEWS IS WHAT MOVES THEM UP THE LADDER. STOP COMMENTING ON REVIEWS YOU DON'T LIKE IF YOU DON'T WANT THEM TO BE AT THE TOP. If you liked this book, I'm so happy for you! That's great! This is simply a rundown of why I did not with a very clear indicator right at the top that I quit a quarter of the way in so people can make their own determination on whether it's of interest to them and on which I did not leave a rating and so did not affect the average. The review currently ranked right below mine is five stars and has only 18 comments to the 48 on this one. Go comment on that review! Push it up the rankings! This would not be the number one review for this book if y'all would just stop angrily engaging with it. Move on from the ones you don't like and engage with the ones you do, because believe me, I do not care if you - a total stranger - loved this book and think I'm wrong. Your comment literally does nothing but keep this review at #1 which I don't even want. anyway, back to the original review...)

- I was not a fan of the narrative tone. The very tongue-in-cheek first person but occasional *wink wink nudge nudge* direct regard to the reader didn’t play out well for me. I found a tone that was supposed to be humorous annoying instead.

- What in the name of all that is holy is going on with the setting of this book. Second world high fantasy, okay, sure. Hot dogs are mentioned on page one. Alright, strange but sure. Chapter two starts by telling the reader that walking away from explosions without looking back - a common television and movie trope - is “undeniably cool.” POUTINE is mentioned - a dish which appears to have been first introduced in the late 1950s. But we have floating magical lights and no electricity. The ship we’re on runs on magic (not explained in the quarter of the book I read) but then why does the map of the ship include an engine room? WHAT THE HELL IS THE SETTING SUPPOSED TO BE HERE????

- The world building and magic is…not good. Notice I said magic and not magic system, because there is no system. Neither a hard nor soft system to be found. In 110 pages all I could tell you about the magic is that 12 specific people have one seemingly random magical power, only two or three of which I know at that point. One can breathe fire, one can turn invisible, one can “control the weather” (unexplained). One’s magic is controlling the ship they’re on, whatever that means. And there are the magical floating lights. That’s the extent of what I learned in 110 pages. How prevalent is magic outside of those twelve specific people? No fucking clue.

- The aesthetics of this book. I hate it. Our twelve person main cast is differentiated by the province their from, recognizable by the pastel color of their hair 💀 green hair for the dragon province, lilac hair for the grasshopper province, “pastel pink” hair for the bunnerfly province, blue hair for the tiger province, you get what I’m laying out here. Sometimes I am glad to have Aphantasia. Hand in hand with the setting, the aesthetics are also wildly difficult to get a handle on when there’s no apparent rhyme or reason to how the world operates.

- Selling this as an adult book does it a disservice because I think a lot of people who want adult fantasy expect a lot more of the systems that fantasy is built on, and the tone of the writing is pretty juvenile in my opinion. (This is no shade to YA, an age range which often has rich fantasy worlds and beautiful prose. This book just does not read as an adult novel to me.)

- I also found the way the author wrote the MCs realtionship with food to be borderline disordered eating and I legitimately cannnot tell if that was intentional. The very casual mentions of this plus sized character's use of food for spite, emotional regulation, and played for laughs was...uncomfortable. There is the deliberate inclusion of fatphobia as one of a number of ways this character is looked down on by their family and some peers, but it didn't feel like their relationship with food was written with intentionality in regards to that. Frankly, I'm still working through my thoughts on this and don't know if I can articulate it well.

So, that's that. Two DNFs in two days, WHO AM I?????

[Jules Arbeaux · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you ever thought, "Wow, what if Fruits Basket were gay and took place on a boat and there was SO MUCH MURDER?" then this is the book for you. It's also for you if you never thought that.

I got to read an early version of this book by making sad hopeful eyes at its incredibly talented author, and Y'all are NOT ready. I YELLED while reading. The places this book takes you! The characters are instantly lovable and so real. Ganymedes Piscero, AKA Dee, is my favorite sort of disaster child, and every one of the twelve heirs feels so real I could swear I've met them personally. The murder mystery aspect kept me literally screaming and guessing right up until the wild reveal, and the humor and breathtaking intensity and wrenching emotion are so well balanced. (Be ready to feel the full spectrum of emotions and then some. It's amazing.) Can't recommend this one highly enough.

By turns visceral and vibrant, Voyage of the Damned blends joyful and page-turning freshness with evocative and deeply emotional intensity. Strap yourself in for the voyage of a lifetime. You're going on a murder cruise.

*straps you in personally* You ARE. You must. I'm literally begging you.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, so I kind of loved this one. I mean, magical passengers on a magical ship? And there's a a murder mystery to boot? Yes, please! There's way more romance in this book than I'm normally willing to read, but I only rolled my eyes a few times over all the lovey-dovey talk which is definitely an accomplishment (on both mine and the author's parts).

Ganymedes (Dee) is on a magical ship (steered by an insane emperor with incredible powers) with the other rulers of the provinces of Concordia. They each have a magical ability called a Blessing … well, except Dee. He's pretty ordinary. But when the Blessed start dying off one by one, it's up to Dee to unmask the killer.

I pretty much adored all of the characters in this book. Most of them are rather unlikeable – although I'll admit that I had more sympathy for several of them than I expected to – but they're also fascinating. Their backstories are well-fleshed out and the worldbuilding surrounding their provinces is fantastic, and it's interesting to see how the idiosyncrasies of their provinces affect their personalities. Dee is a great main character – he's witty and fun and perhaps just a little bit snarky. And who can not love Grasshopper? Such an adorable (and slightly scary) sidekick!

The murder mystery component is a slow burn but I never found myself bored. I think I suspected pretty much every character at one point or another, including Dee himself, so I guess in a way it turns out that I was right when it came to the identity of the murderer? (Okay, fine, maybe that's a stretch.) There are a couple of twists that I never saw coming – the one involving Bear is just … wow. That “if Agatha Christie wrote fantasy” line in the blurb is a pretty accurate description, honestly.

And the worldbuilding … I've already mentioned it once, but it is really, really well done. I'd love to visit Concordia and visit each of the provinces. Even the scary ones … I think. Maybe. If I'm feeling really brave that day.

The romance? Eh, it was okay considering I'm not usually much of a fan. Ganymedes and Bear really have some insta-love going on, although it did all make a lot more sense in the end. Dee's devotion to Ravi is kind of sweet, though, even if he did go on about it a lot.

My overall rating: 4.05 stars, rounded down. Voyage of the Damned is a magical (and romantic) romp of a murder mystery that will leave you guessing right up until the very end.

Many thanks to NetGalley and MIRA for providing me with an advance copy of this book to review. Its expected publication date is August 20, 2024.

[Siavahda · Rating 1 out of 5]

My expectations were low, because my book-bestie, who’d read Voyage of the Damned earlier this year, warned me that it wasn’t really to her taste and probably wouldn’t be to mine either… But eek, I was still expecting better then that.

Is this really Adult??? Because it reads like (not great) YA, with embarrassingly simplistic worldbuilding dropped on us in brick-like info-dumps – and plenty of that worldbuilding makes no sense or contradicts itself, just in the first two chapters.

The empire (and why, why did you name your emperor Eugenios??? I cannot help misreading it as Emperor Eugenics, every time!) is divided into 12 provinces. Each is named for a specific animal, the people there all have the same magical hair colour (like green or blue or purple) and fit a single stereotype, and each province has one industry with which they contribute to the empire.

This is not the level of worldbuilding I expect from Adult SFF. Not even close.

It gets worse: each province is ruled by the Blessed, effectively a noble family blessed with a magical power by the Goddess. But the Blessing only goes to one child in a generation – it’s hereditary, in that it follows the bloodline, but it can manifest in any child of the bloodline, so the eldest in the family won’t necessarily be the one Blessed. And the one with the Blessing is the heir, of course.

Emperor Eugenics was smart enough to just have one kid, guaranteeing that she would inherit the imperial Blessing. Do other Blessed do this? No, they have multiple children. Perhaps to increase the chances of producing a really good heir for the Blessing to select? No, because incompetent or outright bad Blessed are known to happen, in which case a regent will rule for them. How that fits with the idea that only Blessed can rule and/or Blessings indicate that an heir is worthy, I don’t understand.

Oh, and it’s Very Super Bad for Blessed to have illegitimate children, because what if one of them inherits the Blessing??? A thousand years ago, an illegitimate Blessed tried to kill the Emperor! So illegitimate Blessed are bad!

…Except one of the 12 heirs on this cruise is illegitimate. But they made an exception for him! Because he runs the empire’s armies. Despite only being 14. No regent despite his age, and no worries that the Evil Illegitimate Kid has total control of the military.

OKAY THEN.

Did I mention that when the Blessing manifests in a kid, their Blessed parent loses the power??? And that when the Blessings have manifested in all 12 of the latest generation – even if one of the heirs is SIX YEARS OLD – the parents step down and their kids are now in charge???

Picture me tearing my hair out, please.

The prose itself is very, very basic, and it doesn’t help that Ganymedes is not nearly as funny or charming as White thinks he is – he’s just annoying. Though he has good reason to try and ostracise the rest of the Blessed, it’s his internal monologue – not the actions/behaviour he feels he has to engage in – that make him read as kind of a dick. The frat boy vibes were pretty strong here. There’s absolutely nothing engaging about his narration – this is definitely one of the times when a story should have been in third-person rather than first- – and I could feel my eyelids getting heavier as I read, bored out of my damn skull by all of it.

MASSIVE fail.

[Alexia · Rating 2 out of 5]

What can I say about this book? To be honest, I’m conflicted. I originally planned to give it three stars, but that ending really ruined everything the book had built up until then.

I approached it with skepticism due to the mixed reviews, but I ended up initially enjoying it. The premise is engaging, yet the execution fails to meet expectations. The world the author created is intriguing; however, we don’t get nearly enough time to explore all the provinces, which leaves it feeling incomplete.

The plot is straightforward—a simple murder mystery—but the twist complicates things, and this time, it doesn't work in the book's favor. While I wanted to love this story, many aspects simply don’t make sense. The characters’ motives are inconsistent and often baffling. Frankly, I think the story would have been much stronger without the unnecessary twist, which caused the protagonist, Ganymedes, to regress after he had already shown some growth. By the end of the book, Ganymedes becomes a character that I couldn't root for.
The last straw was him pitying the murderer.....are we serious???
So we aren't pitying the dead character but the murderer?

The romance in this book is the most disappointing aspect. The relationships are shallow and poorly developed. Ganymedes claims to love Ravi or Wyatt, yet he seems easily aroused by anyone in sight. That isn’t how someone behaves when they are genuinely in love, especially considering his insistence on a special connection with Ravi. Ganymedes forgiving Ravi for everything was mind-boggling—are we really to believe he was okay with Ravi's lack of concern for the millions of lives that were going to be lost if the original plan succeeded?

Ravi is an incredibly difficult character to empathize with; I neither hated him nor particularly liked him, despite my efforts. By the end of the book, I found him repulsive.
I also don't believe in his so-called love for Ganymedes.
Wyatt, on the other hand, is a character I genuinely liked, and I wish the twist involving him hadn’t occurred. He and Ganymedes showed some character development, yet that progress was ultimately undone by the twist.

These characters are in their twenties, yet their actions often come across as immature. Ganymedes’s crude jokes were increasingly off-putting, diminishing his role as a compelling character.

The side characters were so interesting, but we barely spent any time with them before they began to die off one by one. This is frustrating because they had such interesting backgrounds and complex personalities. We should have spent more time with them; this book should have been a series, not a standalone.

In conclusion, this book had every potential to be incredible, and I genuinely wanted to love it. However, due to the main character’s crude humor, the disappointing romance, and the latter half of the book, I felt let down.

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twelve mono-ethnic nations have been co-existing in a tiered power and influence-based status for centuries; to mark a 1,000 years of peace the Emperor's almost magical ship embarks on a voyage to the Goddess's Mountain; on board are the eleven power 'gifted' representatives of each nation and the Emperor's heir. With magical support staff, there are just the twelve of them on board, that is until one of them gets murdered, and then another...

More than half of this book is a highly entertaining locked-room / locked-ship whodunnit, with an eclectic ticking of diversity quota cast, and a young gay male protagonist Dee, the outlier of the representatives and at the centre of this tale. A coming of age, finding yourself quasi romantasy constructed reality, abound with modern society allegories on class, race, and the establishing and maintaining of power structures, but all wrapped up in an unlikely fun-read littered with murder and mayhem! A Three Star, 7 out of 12 read, which ruined a lot of its work by a a pretty predictable and unsatisfying final third. For an interesting critical review of this read check out Amina's review.

2025 read

[K.J. Charles]

I have no idea why this book is listed as adult apart from some swearing. The style and the worldbuilding are entirely YA, and thus this is not my cup of tea.

[Evie · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded up for overall enjoyment. This was such a fun time, and the fact that this is a debut is really surprising to me, I will be 1000% keeping an eye out for future works by White. I thought that the magic and the world of Concordia was so immersive and made for such an enjoyable reading experience. This works wonderfully as a standalone but I wouldn’t be shocked for more books to be released in this world because there is a lot of potential in these characters.

This is very much a ‘Death on the Nile’ locked room style murder mystery, with everyone on board being the chosen magic barer and leader for their respective kingdoms. Each Kingdom had its own animal and one of the things I appreciated as a reader is how the names had language triggers linking back to their animals to help keep track of who was who (such as Dee Piscero being a fish)

I really enjoyed the tone and humor of Dee as the narrative voice and protagonist. It was at times a bit over the top so I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t mesh as well for everyone. Dee was very much not what I expected but I found him surprisingly complex and the challenges and grief he carries with him are very humanizing. It’s worth noting that while there is romance in this, I wouldn’t think of this as a romance as such, so adjust your expectations accordingly.

This really had some fabulous representation in just about every form; body positivity, lgbtiq characters, numerous bipoc side characters, chronic illness and disability rep. It was a surprising novelty to have a main character who isn’t rocking a six pack and isn’t breathtakingly handsome, so if you are looking at an option which highlights and supports diversity representation this might be a good choice.

I did sometimes find the tone a bit confusing, I have tried to see if this is marketed as adult fantasy or YA but haven’t come across an answer but the writing style actually reads pretty NA, there is mild sexual content, violence and gore, strong language and pretty heavy themes of suicidal ideation and grief throughout but the writing is simple and accessible.

As usual, my blind ass didn’t guess the mysteries or twists, so I continue to have a good time getting swept away in the adventure.

[Amina · Rating 2 out of 5]

✰ 2.25 stars ✰

“You see the world in a way nobody else does. You’re better than all of them.’ He rested his forehead against mine, fingers knotting in my tousled hair. ‘Because you don’t need a Blessing to be a miracle.”

I do appreciate how aptly titled Voyage of the Damned proved to be - nothing like a little blood and gore to show just how adult a book can be. Also, does the usage of foul and crude language serve as an example of it being a book targeted for older readers? When it, in fact, does seem more like a YA? 🙅🏻‍♀️ I was teetering between these two options, along with the vast usage of long-winded names that made it harder for me to pay attention to Pissfish, sorry, I mean, Dee's conflict. It had the making of a good idea, which sadly, became a lost cause - no, let me amend that. It started off rather weakly. I was not feeling it; when it became a murder mystery and Dee paired off with one of the likely targets, I started to get into it. Then, something happened that upset me so much that I lost any forgiving thought I may have nurtured for it. It was not only a bad tactic, it completely discredited so much of whatever Dee had already experienced that all previous appreciation faded away completely. 🙎🏻‍♀️

“I have felt their judgement burn into me with every disapproving glare and barbed word for the past decade. And now they have finally been given a way to wield it.”

‘You’re a strange man, Ganymedes Piscero’, or Dee as he preferred to be called, did not grow on me - but, his character did have some personal growth. From one who was so determined not to be under the investigative scrutiny of his fellow Blessed, it was his determination to protect those closest to him, and inadvertently, himself, that pushed him to find out who was behind the nefarious danger he and his fellow comrades were facing. ‘Worse – you’re a good person. An actual good person. That is what makes you boring.’ He had the potential to be an agreeable kind of protagonist that you would like, but his attitude and behavior was so unpleasant right from the start - that even as he was pushing for others to dislike him, he, in turn, made the readers, meaning me, dislike him, too. 😕 'I’m going to create a scene so explosive it’ll be enough to sink this magnificent vessel.' There should have been a dividing factor between his personality and the one he was channeling to be at odds with everyone, so that you could see the good in him that he might have had. 🤷🏻‍♀️

What it failed to deliver was the locked-room mystery, the whodunit compulsion to keep you speculating who really was the guilty party. It's not that we were even provided context clues to figure it out on our own, it was that Dee wasn't even doing maximum effort to figure it out. 'Murder is an effective way to keep your secrets safe.' Rather each culprit was approaching him with the desire to gain something in order to provide him with the information he's looking for! 🙄 That just feels like such a lazy approach to what makes a good mystery! My frustration increased tenfold when the body count of deaths steadily rose as time inched closer to their eventual arrival at their intended destination. Another factor that hindered my full attention was the intensive names thrown at you, right at the start. Names that in the end did not hold any real function and worse when you have abstract names paired with simple names that just becomes an eventual eyesore. 😵‍💫

“I’m not afraid of it because I’m afraid of drowning. I’m afraid that if I go beneath the surface, I won’t want to come back up.

And I do not break promises.”

It was not entirely a pleasant read, as it was only my eager curiosity to know who truly was behind it all that kept me going till the end. There were some cute moments that Dee shared with certain characters that made me smile. 🥺 I hoped that whatever I was rooting for would actually come to light and there was some saving grace to this voyage of the damned - no, like, seriously, it was a lot of bloodshed. But, then the plot twist happened - and it soured my mood beyond recognition. ☹️ 'I realized then there was one person who cared if I lived. One sweet boy who would cry if I died.' You might think I'm never one to shy from details, but for this one I think it's best if I'll just keep silent about it, that felt like such a waste of breath. 😮‍💨

Everything that happened in between showed just how ineffective all of Dee's thoughts and feelings till that time were null and void. It felt like such a visceral slap that regardless of whatever heartwarming tender moments that took place after only incensed me further. I mean, Goodness knows Chapter 18 was so very sweet, I really liked where it was going! 😫 But then, it happened and I just felt like it was such a disservice of the potential of what it could have been rather than what path it chose to take. Frustrated fuming would probably be the correct way of describing it, but, alas, no dnf in sight for this forgiving soul. 😔

The supporting cast bore a striking resemblance to Fruits Basket how they were affiliated with various animals and endowed with certain powers - 'the double-edged sword of a Blessing' that made them important persons to their respective provinces. ‘How in the Goddess’s blessed name does a boy grow up amongst this shower of bastards and not loathe a single one of them?’ Yet, they were so very detestable and quarrelsome and loathsome to one another that I don't think anyone even minded in the slightest for all the attacks taking place on their lives! 😒

I appreciated that there was a slight attempt to highlight how discrimination between power and status can lead to a destructive path and how it is worsened when outside parties decide for themselves what the necessary course of action is. I just didn't think any of the characters were even redeemable enough to care about their wellbeing; there was only one or two really fully fleshed friendships that stood out and even then it wasn't enough to really hold my attention. It pains me to be so harsh on a debut novel, but if the writing just doesn't work, it's only fair to at least explain why it was. 🙍🏻‍♀️

[Frances White]

Hello! My name is Frances and I wrote this book! Voyage of the Damned is my debut novel, and is the result of hundreds of rejections, many trunked books and seven long years in the trenches.

It’s chaotic, a little silly, and very queer, but with a beating emotional core.

I have always struggled to relate to the typical heroes who kick ass and take names later, or who don’t have to psych themselves up for hours, lying in the fetal position before doing something scary. I believe the world has room for all sorts of heroes. In this book, you’ll find mine. I hope he can become yours too.

So please, grab your boarding pass, and hop aboard the magical gay murder mystery cruise!

Please find content warnings below:

• Strong language
• Political conflict
• Parental abuse and neglect
• Child endangerment
• Mental illness including suicidal ideation, attempts and depression
• Amputation
• Grief
• Scenes of physical violence and murder
• Drowning
• Alcohol consumption
• Class based discrimination

[Booksblabbering || Cait❣️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Death on the Nile meets fantasy and a smug, bastard, funny, queer underdog protagonist you can’t help but root for.

The twelve heirs of the providence’s board the Dragon's Dawn ship to travel to the mountain where the Blessing was first bestowed, to give thanks to the Goddess, united once more.

Each blessed is graced with a unique and secret magical ability known as a Blessing. Except Ganymedes, ‘Dee’, a bastard who is forced to lie to everyone about his absent Blessing by his father.
Aboard, the beloved heir is murdered and everyone is a suspect as the murderer strikes again and again.

This is such a fun story filled with immature jokes, found family, longing, queerness, identity, class, loyalty, and discrimination.

Dee is a master of puns and also seems to draw the lost, abandoned souls to him (think Six of Crows). This includes a sickly boy and a six-year old hyper girl.

’We're a package deal.’
‘We're a swarm!' Grasshopper leaps in place.
‘I guess I have a way of picking up strays,’ I say with a meaningful look.

This is a locked door Murder mystery with magic, complicated families, and an empire set to falling apart with rising tensions and a ‘Bandage’ border set to be overrun.
It deals with topics of castes, expectations, disabilities, and prejudices.

Loyalty also meant hate. Indiscriminate, unquestioning hate.

And THAT TWIST? I thought I knew what was coming and thought I’d be kinda disappointed, but whilst I predicted some things, there was something that totally took me by surprise happened and I was like WOAH.

The perfect blend between light-hearted moments and hard-hitting character insights.

Thank you to Penguin Random House for providing an arc in exchange for a review!

Bookstagram

[Melody · Rating 1 out of 5]

I truly expected to love Voyage of the Damned, and if I couldn't love it, I expected to at least be entertained by it. An adult murder mystery set on a boat, classic. But with fantasy elements and magic? Oh, so in other words, what has been missing from my life?

Unfortunately, from the first chapter, I knew this book wasn't going to deliver on any of its highly-marketable promises. Upon meeting the main character, Ganymedes Piscero (sadly truncated to Dee), and his obnoxious, deeply unfunny personality told through an unfiltered first-person perspective, everything fell apart from there. Dee is the self-obsessed asshole who occasionally does a nice thing for someone, and the narrative confuses this as someone who is chaotic, but good. If that were the case, why does the narrative try to make Dee more palatable by surrounding him with poorly-written children? Is it because they're the only creatures who can stand him?

Meanwhile, every aspect of the world-building is established through generalizations, opinions, and assumptions that Dee makes, so everything you think you know? Don't worry about it. It will get contradicted, disproven, or go completely unchallenged as you read on. This might've worked if the story had been told in third-person, where some cold hard facts could've been established rather than the teetering, hole-ridden house of sticks I was given. If I'm about to get on a murder cruise with a bunch of eccentrics, I expect for them to be hiding some exceptions to the rules among them. It just adds flavor, you know? Makes the dirty secrets amongst all the murder interesting. But you have to ground me into the world state first before you start contradicting yourself about Blessings and the stakes Dee faces even before the first chapter ends.

Here's the real rub, though. My biggest problem with Voyage of the Damned is that it is both marketed to and written for an adult audience, but it is Young Adult down to the studs. It's just that occasionally the characters will throw a hearty "fuck" or "cock" around. But make no mistake, from the short paragraphs to the shorter sentences, from the big font to the irreverent tone, from the flat characters to the simplistic politics, this book is YA. I probably wouldn't have even judged it so harshly if it had been YA, but you know what they say: act like an adult, get tried as an adult.

By the second chapter, we meet the rest of our cast, and it's a flurry of anime hair and eye colors and diversity bingo. I understand the challenge the author faced here. You have to introduce all the players quickly enough to stay interesting but notably enough to stay memorable, especially because the first murder is going to take place soon. The sooner a character is murdered, the less time we have to get to know them and potentially be attached to them. But the thing about murder mysteries is, you often learn about the deceased character(s) through the surviving ones, through their motives, personal intrigues, and interwoven ties.

What I'm saying is that the author chose instead to focus on all the wrong things, which is Dee. His thoughts and feelings. His goal to make everyone pissed off and disgusted at him. We don't so much learn about the other Blessed as we do about why they hate Dee, and I don't think I was supposed to have that in common with them. The few heart-to-heart moments we get with Ravinder and Eudora still come around to being more about Dee and his feelings than about them as characters. In short, our murder mystery so far is focusing too much on the introspection and goals of the main character than it is about setting up the mystery.

Then, there's the six-year-old. Grasshopper. Her name is Yewande, but she is rarely referred to by name because Dee never thinks to ask her her name. He just calls her Grasshopper and she dutifully trails along behind him like an unhinged chihuahua for the majority of the book to, again, make him the slightest bit more palatable. There are some authors who can write children characters. Frances White isn't one of them, so this didn't work for me. (This is my opportunity to ask you to please read Unsounded by Ashley Cope, who writes fantastic children characters in the form of Sette, Jivi, and Matty.)

When the first murder does happen, it's kind of like it doesn't. None of the characters act remotely bothered that they're trapped on a boat in the middle of the ocean with a murderer. There is no great sense of urgency or suspicion. There is no tension or concern for the survivors' lives. There's not even concern for the political upheaval that would await them at home once the knowledge of the murder becomes publicly known.

When the second murder happens, involving someone who Dee proclaims to be close to, much the same occurs. The exception is that Dee holes himself up in his room to lie in bed and eat his feelings, which feels more akin to experiencing a bad break-up rather than you losing the person you loved most in your life to a grisly murder. Otherwise, characters constantly roam the ship alone, not because they're trying to accomplish anything like plot but just because. No worries.

Once Dee snaps out of his fugue state and decides to sleuth this thing, the tone of the book never shifts into the seriousness and intrigue of a murder mystery, particularly one that should feel very personal to him. Instead, it feels more like he's trying to solve a silly scavenger hunt. The middle of the book is a lot of meandering to have brief conversations with characters that go nowhere and reveal little of consequence, drizzled with a few more murders and the most ill-timed insta-love I've ever read in my life. And despite the twist that occurs in the end, this insta-love never gets properly questioned, either.

Is the culprit of the murders obvious? Yes, but irrelevant. What actually matters is that Dee never actually solves the mystery himself. He inches close to it, but in the end, two characters have to wrap up all the loose ends for him, including a far-too-generous monologue by the villain. Call me ungrateful, but this doesn't qualify as a murder mystery to me if the only reason it's solved is due to process of elimination (because so many people are dead) and because the answers are just handed out. What's frustrating is, Dee definitely had some clues! I feel like he could've Poirot-ed this shit if he had been allowed to get more personable with the rest of the cast.

Because that's another thing. Frances White clearly loved her bag of potato chip world-building and politics, so much so that she focused on them far too much at the expense of the characters. Since the magic element was tied into the world-building and politics, this makes sense, but I feel like her trying to explain her convoluted system, constantly patching the holes in it as she went, just took us further and further away from what makes murder mysteries so interesting: the people involved in them.

It's only towards the end that we start to actually dig into the characters who are left, the secrets they hold and the feelings they hide, but it's too little, too late. This should've been the whole book. And that first murder! I kept waiting for that first murder to matter on a personal, even political level, and it just... Doesn't. The ending is so laughably patch-work, that, again, I feel like Voyage of the Damned was more suited to being a character study of its YA protagonist than it was to being anything it proclaimed to be. This book could have genuinely been so entertaining, but it missed mark after mark.

[Lena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Queer fantasy murder mystery?
I most definitely didn't expect it to turn one of the best reads this year.
Witty and original it intrigues form the very beginning. The MC is funny but hides a lot of emotional baggage under his jokes. His journey from self-loathing to happy end is full of hope. And the other characters are interesting and well written as well. World-building is great - political intrigues and magic system are intriguing.
As for the murder investigation, it's also intriguing but not all plot-twist are equally surprising. The witty narration makes up for everything though.

[Ed Crocker · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say? I was obsessed with this book. When I wasn’t trying to feverishly guess the murder in this most exalted of sub-genres – a fantasy murder mystery – I was being emotionally battered by some of the most honest, perceptive and real character work I’ve come across in any genre.

Honestly? It is ridiculous that this book is a debut, because on three key areas – worldbuilding, (murder) plot and honest, deeply moving character work – White knocks this out of the park so hard they’ll still be searching for the ball when we colonise Mars.

Let’s start with the worldbuilding. The premise of this book is fiendishly simple – twelve magically powered (and rarely straight) people on a boat are killed one by one – or as White herself puts it, “a magical gay mystery cruise”. But the world around that is – or at least it should be – monstrously complicated. The Empire of Concordia is split into twelve provinces, each named after an animal (Dragon, Tiger, Bear, you probably don’t need me to keep naming animals). The leaders of these provinces have “blessings”, i.e. magical powers that can be anything and that they pass onto their children. The provinces all have very different climates – desert, arctic, jungle etc. – and also different political power dynamics (to cut a long story short, half are weak, the other half are dicks). The young leaders on the boat – all headed to a mountain where the most powerful leader, the Dragon, will receive her own ultimate blessing – all have different personalities and endless secrets.

Basically, the amount of information here is staggering, but the first 15% of this book is a textbook study on how to get across SO MUCH worldbuilding in a way that doesn’t feel complicated or excessive. By a quarter of the way in I could easily tell you about each and every province and that is more impressive an achievement than however the hell the pyramids were built.

Then there’s the main character whose eyes we see the whole story through, Ganymedes, better known as Dee. Oh man, Dee. Not content with giving us one of fantasy’s great murder mysteries, White offers up one of fantasy’s great protagonists. Dee is an utterly hilarious but also heart-breaking whirlwind; if you don’t get a little water in your eyes, I don’t believe you. Dee hails from one of the weaker Southern provinces, Fish province, who are considered weak, poor scum by most of the arrogant Northern provinces. But Dee is unwilling to bend to these bullies, and makes an alliance of the weaker provinces to find out who is killing their way to power. He is a chaotic detective who it is impossible not to root for.

On a political level, White uses this story to show how the strong bully the weak, and this offers some meaty colonial themes for our own world. But this is not the simple analogy you might think; even the bullies turn out to have their own heart-breaking origins; even the strong turn out to have been tragically forged by their own weakness; twisted by their own pain into being a villain.

But on a personal level, Dee is a marvel too. He has a secret that is destroying him, and this is a book partly about how hiding your real identity can grind you down. Given that Dee is Bi, and a majority of the book’s characters are at least one of the letters in LGBT, this obviously has real relevance for those communities, but it also offers a textbook case for anyone on how the seemingly confident can lack self-esteem, and how you can be weakened by the secrets that mistakenly shame you.

White wields this powerful lesson like a scalpel; 70% of Dee is hilarious, larger than life chaotic – half of his proclamations had me shrieking with laughter – but the other 30% is heart breaking, and more so for how quickly it follows the humour. Humour and personal grief are difficult to meld well in writing. For White, it is seamless. There is also a great (gay) romance for the ages entwined among all the satisfying murder – never has the message about the power of someone seeing you for who you are been so keenly felt. This book will break you a thousand times and mend you all over again.

Finally, there is the murder mystery itself. To do a fantasy murder mystery that works is a challenge akin to threading the eye of a needle in the middle of an earthquake. Fantasy readers expect worldbuilding and character arcs as well as the complex, clockwork plot that murder mystery fans expect. Yet White has achieved maybe the best example of this cross-genre I’ve ever seen. I approached these murders like a man obsessed; I was so confident I’d guessed the twist, and I was so wrong, so utterly, utterly wrong. Speaking as someone who is currently writing their second fantasy murder mystery, I genuinely do not know how she did this. She must have given over most of her abode to post-it notes and paper string, either that or she’s a genius. At this point, I’m tending towards the latter.

You have one task in January. Read this book. It may well turn out to be 2024’s landmark fantasy.

[Lexi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Overview:

🕵️‍♂️ Fantasy mystery
🦁 "Harry Potter" style houses
🔍 Locked room
♥️ Friends to lovers
👨‍👨‍👦‍👦 Ensemble cast
☝️ Single POV
🫶 Lots of rep : Multiple races, disability rep, trans, non binary, and fat characters
🏳️‍🌈 Queernormative world

The bar for excellence has been set with Voyage of the Damned.

Set in a world where provinces are divided heavily by culture and representative animal, a group of young people with the blessed magic (Called Blessed) of their province travel together on a mission of unity..until they start dying off. Ganymedes is from the Fish province, the "lowest" in the group. He also may not actually have any magic. He is a certified "little shit" liked by few. When his peers start getting killed, it is up to him to solve the mystery, which draws him deeper into a conspiracy that could shatter the unity of the provinces for good.

Frances White is now an insta buy. To take 10ish characters and inject every single one of them with heart, backstory, and emotional relevance is no easy task- to do so with just a single POV in a stand alone book is almost unheard of. To do all of that and build the world and all of its political complexities...well you get the idea. This book is high concept and not easy to pull off, and yet it was done.

By the time I finished, I had extremely strong opinions about the culture and connectivity of the provinces of Concordia, and every single character pulled emotion out of me whether it was deep affection or loathing. I found myself desperate to know more. To get a stand alone in the same universe about the various houses. To get short stories about the characters who are killed. To get backstories for characters we have never even met, because the Concordia history is told so richly that you walk out with folklore and history that get you absolutely thrilled and begging for more. In less than 500 pages, Frances White gives you the "Adult Harry Potter" world that so many books have tried to replicate- but mix it up a bit with Game of Thrones- and no transphobia.

In fact, Voyage of the Damned features a queer normative cast with a non binary character and a trans boy, as well as a large cast of mostly bisexual characters. White weaves character gender and sexuality very elegantly into the story. Its never trauma porn nor is it "preachy". The queer characters are messy, evil, kind as hell, full of pain, full of grace, and hiding tons of secrets- none of which involve their queerness- yet queerness amplifies the story in so many ways. Particularly in the rich and drama heavy twisty turnyness of character relationships.

Ganymedes Aka Dee aka "The Fish" is our main character and absolutely a riot. He's such a creative character, the jester in his own story, and hes ACTUALLY funny. A fantasy author who is capable of writing a legitimately funny character without his quips sounding put on and lame? I was obsessed from the get go. Part of it is that our fish carries a lot of pain and trauma that manifests itself into humor, and his character grows splendidly as he connects to the other characters and tries to solve the mystery of who is killing them. Think Sherlock Holmes if he was a male bimbo. HE IS PERFECT.

The other characters, as said, shine brightly also. I found my favorites shifting a lot as the story progressed and we got to know each character and what motivates them. From the mysterious Ravi to the duty bound Leofric to the cold and controlling Tendai. The soulful monk. The lonely dying boy. The ice princess who will stab you in a moment. The terrifying spider..and so many more. Each are complex and rich enough to deserve their own books.

Make no mistake about it though, this is a murder mystery. And it gets MURDERY. The characters are stuck on a boat isolated in the ocean and need to solve the mystery before more of them die. If you want a murder mystery with some actual stakes, this is it.

Despite being stabby, Voyage of the Damned almost has a warm and fuzzy quality to it. Imagine if Murder on the Orient Express occasionally brushed hands with a cozy fantasy. I am not a fan of the genre, but the high stakes, actual killing, and complex political themes made the moments of sweetness and positivity so rewarding.

The fantasy element is played up so well- with each character having a secret magical power representing their home. Each family has wronged eachother, and in many ways, the Blessed are playing out thousands of years of inter country turmoil and pain. The political elements and hard questions are not forgotten as the characters need to face the past of the culture they represent to dissect who would want to kill them.

This is a near perfect book to me. Every single page was fast paced, engaging, and added something new and meaningful to the plot- not a moment was wasted on something unnecessary or uninteresting. Spirited characters, a mystery you will have fun solving, cool fantasy houses and magic to identify with, and even a dash of romance. This book is truly the "it" girl of 2024 and Frances White has become an immediate favorite author.

[charlotte, · Rating 1 out of 5]

On my blog.

CWs: suicidal ideation, self harm, amputation

Galley provided by publisher

Voyage of the Damned is a book that started so well. Or, rather, reasonably well. Enjoyably enough well. And then it went rapidly downhill.

When it was going well, it felt a kind of lighthearted mystery (albeit with a fair amount of gruesome murder). The main character is, in the nicest way (also known as I’m failing to find the words I want), a bit of a loser, but sympathetic enough for it. He has no friends, he’s keeping a secret (that he’s not actually the heir to his father), and all he wants is to be released from all responsibilities. Instead, he finds himself on a murder cruise, where every one of the other heirs seems to be dying. Including his ex-best friend.

Like I said, it was all going fine for about the first quarter. But then the middle section was, to be blunt, so fucking boring. There was a lot of repetitiveness. People kept dying, the investigation wasn’t going anywhere, the main character felt like he was being needlessly self-pitying for a lot of it (this was, it has to be said, where my sympathy and patience suddenly ran out). There was no tension and no drive to it and, really, it felt like the only way this would be solved would be because no one would be left alive except the murderers.

In fact, the only way anything came out at all was the stupidest deus ex machina-esque twist that I have read in my entire life. In the interests of not spoiling anything however, I’m going to take this at a different angle. I think the underlying issue here was a failure in worldbuilding. It was weak and generic and that meant that the twist when it came felt less something that made sense within the worldbuilding and more a “oh this can happen now” twist. It’s not clear how these “blessings” (that give heirs to regions a specific magic power, but manifests uniquely to them) really work. There’s no apparent limit on the level of power they could have. Which, I think, is where the nature of my problem with the twist lies. A fantasy magic system where there are no checks on the power just leads to stuff like this. Really the fantasy elements in this book only seem to be there as a way for the characters to deus ex machina their way out of a hole. The investigation is going nowhere. The main character is in no way capable of solving the murder himself, even with the friends he has. In fact, he basically doesn’t solve the murder! It solves itself for him!

The more I read of this book, the more frustrated I got. I had this theory from the start of the who and why, but that was blown out of the water pretty quickly. I do think, though, that it was a better mystery plot than whatever the hell this was. It’s not like this couldn’t have been done well, but here, it absolutely wasn’t done well. And the second aspect of the twist? Just as frustrating as the rest of it! All of it coming down to just how poor the worldbuilding was. And also, it has to be said, how little interest I had in any of the relationships the main character had.

I mean, I had little interest in any of the characters full stop. They were one-note, completely flat and uncompelling. If, on occasion, they showed a little bit of personality or interestingness, it soon disappeared, swamped by the main character’s mediocrity. If the characters had been remotely intriguing, then perhaps I wouldn’t have minded the lack of worldbuilding effort (after all, this is a character-driven story for the most part), but alas. They were as bland as the rest of it.

So, in conclusion, I have to ask exactly why the comparisons to Murder on the Orient Express (besides the obvious, murder cruise/murder train ride) because, oh boy, Agatha Christie this is not.

[Nathaniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read with the illumicrate readalong*

This is a hard book for me to review because it was fun and the author clearly put a lot of heart in it. Sadly a lot of heart isn’t enough to make a book good and I think this would have worked better if they reworked it into a YA book.

The worldbuilding felt incredibly juvenile and you didn’t really get a sense of how everything slotted in together. Most of the places were also clearly inspired by real world cultures but on a very superficial level which made it feel like a baby's first fantasy world. The magic system was also very basic and while I do think the set up was fun it didn’t do it for me in the end.

The characters varied in how much I liked them but Dee was just cringe and insufferable and that's not a good sign for a main character. He had multiple moments that made him seem like a young teen and not an adult man. I did like both Wyatt and Grasshopper. Most of the side characters I found okay, especially compared to Dee. I also disliked Ravi but I’ll talk about that in the end section.

The humor in the book was honestly not my thing. Especially the repetitive nature of some jokes. At one point Dee repeatedly internally giggles at people saying bottom and while I could accept it the first time it just feels overdone and immature as soon as they repeat it.

The representation in this book was clearly done with good intent but it did fail at multiple levels for me. I'm not a fan of the super horny Bi character who wants to fuck everyone. But it's not as bad as making the emotionally distant character AroAce. I also am a bit uncomfortable with how some of the non white characters are portrayed.

I do think the book had some well written parts and I appreciated trying to guess at the mystery.


And now onto spoilers about the end.

I think the wyatt reveal was a good plot twist on a theoretical level but it did sadly turn me off from the romance. I really appreciated Wyatt's character development and journey so having that thrown away made me a bit upset. It being Ravi the entire time felt like the entire romance was thrown out the window and I'm confused why Dee just accepted it. Ravis reasoning is also just flawed and he comes off as both flakey, mean and only there to further the plot. He changed his mind about who he liked and what side he was on way too quickly and he just let all those murders happen so Dee could start “believing in himself” like be for real?

I really disliked the ending as well. The book builds up that having powers is dangerous to your body and how balance is needed etc etc. so when Cordelia's plan was revealed I expected her to try and get all these powers and perish from it. Having Dee just be able to take them all felt like such a let down and not the ending to a book that already set up quite the tragedy. ( I also hate that he get rainbow hair. )

I also think it’s highly weird to put a white man in charge of all these places based where at least two are based on real life colonized countries. It’s giving the british empire. It also felt way too convenient to just let dee solve everything bad and end the empire's oppression in three months. The Crabs had been thrown out for one thousand years and white boy solved it in three months?! I could have accepted that in a young adult book but NOT in adult fiction.

In the end I had fun reading some parts which is why the book still got 2 stars.

[Hirondelle (not getting notifications) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Look, I am not saying this is actually good. But I am still giving it 4 stars, sorry but not sorry, because it was so much fun, and it has a quality (for me and not necessarily others), which is hard to define but which I value - energy, perhaps.

I do think there is a thing as "good" writing and plotting and all that, and one can find so many many many things to criticize here, you can go read the one star reviews and assume they are mostly right (but not always. For example, I thought the names were good). Special hair for characters, a much too cutesy child sidekick (seriously the most annoying cutesy child ever), low self-esteem main character disguising his insecurity with snark, constant snarking asides in the narrative, stupid mooning over love interests - all that, and more! First person present POV! It's a very tiktok-y, right now, book.

You know when Fourth Wing came out, and people were writing reviews that it was bad but fun in a cheesy way? I did not feel like that about Fourth Wing, I quit early on, but hey, I get it now, this is my Fourth Wing. It's so cheesy in all ways, but I just had so much fun reading it.

Incidentally, despite this being sold as adult fantasy, ah, LOL, yeah, right, nope. It feels totally YA apart from some rather filthy jokes, mostly in innuendo form. Characters are supposedly mostly adults, but they totally feel like teenagers anyway. Regarding sex explicitness fade to black scene and some innuendo which might just go over the head of a lot of people.

Handwaving fantasy universe, 12 "houses"/nations all together form an empire, and their heirs (with special gifts. And each house has differently colored heir) are stuck in a boat trip for magical purposes and eventually a killer strikes. Our insecure, snarky queer fat main character is trying to figure out what is going on, what magic gifts and alliances and agendas the others have. And it is just plain out fast, daring, and fun. It reminded me a bit of my reaction to the The Inheritance Games with some of that pop culture snarky vibe and gaslighting daring from Gideon the Ninth (Not that I am saying it is as good, I take no responsibility for any regrets regarding purchases of this book.) The plot is fantastically contrived, but well  established and the main twist is actually fantastic. 

Cheesier than very very cheesy things, but now and then that just hits the spot.

[Bill Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a real breath of fresh air!
I love a genre blend and this was everything I could’ve wanted in an Agatha Christie style fantasy. Also Dee <3

[Devon Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, it started well enough. I was intrigued and it is definitely a different kind of book. And Dee WAS funny…for about five minutes. Then it just becomes annoying. And I had no idea Dee is in his 20s? He reads like a 16 year old who runs a discord server containing no one but himself.

And when an author sells me a world, but then literally one chapter later contradicts that world, and then one chapter even later than that completely contradicts the contradiction I have to just throw my hands up in surrender. I guess the fantasy in this book is that we can just do whatever we want? Jesus take the wheel we’re just gonna throw everything onto a page and see what sticks?

What was supposed to be whimsical was, instead, nonsensical and off putting. Why are we having a costume party when there are only 12 people on board who don’t even want to dress up? Why don’t we just…not dress up?

And a character dies, but the scene immediately cuts away with no details or information or even mourning or sadness. Just “oh! Well they’re dead…moving on….” Like, I couldn’t have cared less?

I also think this book suffers from just too many characters all vying for some important spot in the narrative. I don’t care about anyone, and I don’t care about Dee the most. The dialogue is weird and awkward and I had trouble sorting out what he was saying aloud versus what he was thinking…also, the conversations were just awkwardly spaced and felt so disjointed.

If I had to say something nice, I would say this book had potential. And there were some moments that really did make me giggle out loud at first, so that shows the author definitely has some skills…there were even a few one liners that were downright profound had they been laid out on a more stable world building foundation. But this book needs more editing, more fleshing out, and it would have benefited from being written in third person. Being trapped in Dee’s immature, self centered, cringe fest of a brain is just too much.

[Mara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish this had just aged down the characters and made this YA, because I think that's much better aligned with the character depth & world building. It was entertaining and you know I loooovvveeee an isolated closed circle mystery, but it wasn't as successful as I'd hoped. Realistically, this is probably a 2.5 star, but my love the trope will bump it to a 3

[Melissa F. · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 100 pages.

Hoo boy. Yikes.

Look, I promised myself I would really start giving Illumicrate picks a fair shot, because I have a habit of just selling any that don't look interesting to me, and I should really try to put myself out there more when it comes to reading choices, right?

I wasn't worried about this book. This book was RIGHT UP MY ALLEY. Mystery meets fantasy, murder on a ship, no way out, queer romance, lots of quality rep... I LOVE THIS STUFF, this is the stuff I LIVE FOR. This was not a book I was actually concerned about liking - I thought there was no way I could miss here!

I'm actually cranky about this. This review is going to be harsh, and I'll be honest, I think a lot of my anger is likely because of Point Number 1.

So, okay, Point Number 1, marketing. This is NOT an adult book. This is not even CLOSE to an adult book. This is absolutely 100% YA masquerading as adult SOMEHOW. I'm not usually so picky about it but my god, how are people calling this an adult book??? SHIT LIKE THIS IS WHY I HAVE TRUST ISSUES, PENGUIN AND ILLUMICRATE.

Second of all, the main character. I have heard him called charming, and endearing, and funny, and HE IS LITERALLY NONE OF THESE THINGS. He is a douchebag of monstrous proportions, and like, I GET WHY, I do, but this does not make him a likable character. Are we meant to like him? Really? I think I would have enjoyed this more if we were meant to spend the whole book hating him only for a big twist ending at the end.

Third, the worldbuilding. By which I mean WHAT worldbuilding? What little there is here is incredibly lazy and not well thought out at all, and the info-dumping to get us to the point that we understand it is BARBARIC TORTURE. Really. I think forcing someone to read every word of those pages could count as an interrogation technique. I'd spill my guts not to have to suffer through something like that - I had to start skimming large swathes of it just so I didn't beat my head against my desk.

I did flip through the rest of the book, and as far as I can tell, the mystery very quickly gives way to a rather juvenile-feeling romance that takes over the main character's entire thought process, and I'll be honest, after the first hundred pages, I just didn't have it in me to torture myself any longer.

~

If you want a great murder mystery at sea, I recommend Stuart Turton's The Devil and the Dark Water. If you want a great queer murder mystery at sea, I recommend Freya Marske's A Restless Truth. Both are fabulous and fun and deeply enjoyable in different ways. Both are lightyears more enjoyable than this.

[Miranda Norman · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ll probably come back in a few days and write a proper review, but right now I just need to seethe.
. . .
Ok I'm back and ready to bitch.

The first thing I thought, not even ten pages in, was "I'm not one to tab books, but I really wish I owned tabs for this one." Sounds like a compliment, right? Wrong. If I were to tab every sex joke, dick joke, poop joke, and just generally crass and poorly-timed remark that this main character made (as well as words like "arse" and "bollocks" to prove the author is British, because you can't forget the author is British... so much arse), I promise you would not be able to see the actual edge of this book. At least four or five PER PAGE, and for what? To prove the main character is annoying. Truly that is the only explanation. He is said to be twenty-two but you could've told me this dude is thirteen and it would have made more sense. His only personality trait is to be obnoxious and irritating. At certain points he is doing it on purpose to bug those around him, which I can pretend to forgive, but during conversations that are meant to be sentimental, or discussing people that are FRESHLY DEAD and LAYING RIGHT NEXT TO YOU, you choose to think about how the not-dead guy you're talking to is hot? Make comments about threesomes? Really? In front of the six-year-old you've tasked yourself with taking care of?

The other characters are no better in that they are cartoons of singular personality traits. We learn next to nothing about most of them, and every conversation they have is a "who can be a bigger edgelord" competition of empty threats and brooding. So much brooding. The only character who could be considered mildly likeable is the six-year-old, and only because she is cute and six-year-olds are generally mildly likeable, but her vocabulary is far too large for a six-year-old, while having the grammar of a two-year-old. Overall, in terms of characters, this book needed to take a huge step back. By that I mean: every conversation in this book reads like when you have an argument in your head while showering after actually speaking to the person, picking the most snappy and comeback-y things you could say. None of this reads as anything that real people would say to one another. The author sacrificed pretty much everything a book needs, in exchange for shoving down your throat the fact that she thinks she is so damn hilarious, via four hundred poop jokes. Truly awful.

Another thing - why do some characters speak so formally we may as well be reading Bridgerton, while some don't even use correct grammar (this is half-explained in that their region has their own primary language that's technically illegal but they speak it anyway, but then you'd notice their poor grammar and crack down on that? What?), while others (mostly MC) speak in sex jokes, and not a single character finds this remotely strange. This setup does not make a lick of sense.
 
Even beyond the general "this main character is insufferable to read and impossible to root for", the structure/plot of this book is abysmal. We spend 400 pages watching this asshole try to "solve" who is murdering everyone, basically by eating a bunch of candy and egging on the potential murderers because that's somehow amusing, only for Dee to ultimately solve nothing! The answer LITERALLY WALKS UP TO HIM AND TELLS HIM WHAT ALL HAPPENED! And the typical "villain sits down and tells you how they did everything?" THAT HAPPENS TWICE. TWO DIFFERENT VILLAINS, TWO VILLAINOUS MONOLOGUES. Not to mention over half of the cast ultimately dies, and in such quick succession that you don't even have to put any thought into who is the killer, just wait like 50 pages and they'll be the only one(s) left alive.

On top of this, any piece of information we actually learn is perfectly-timed and only possible because we learn next to nothing about how the magic system works. We know no bounds for how powerful someone is able to be, so God could've just appeared and killed someone by looking at them and someone would say "oh that's just my superpower, don't worry about that" while others have the power to ... be invisible. Sick, that checks out.

There are a handful of other, smaller gripes: a character literally absorbs the power of like nine people and basically becomes a god, and what does he decide to do first? Have sex with the dude standing next to him, on the top of a freezing, snowy mountain, of course (I actually laughed out loud at that, and not because it's amusing, but because it's so fucking stupid); the MC is being drowned and that is the perfect moment he gains his power, which happens to be breathing underwater, ten years later than everyone else ever shows powers; the whole "oh I had next to nothing to do with this tragedy but I was asleep when it happened so it was my fault, I didn't stop it woe is me" trash; so on and so forth, for over four hundred pages.

How DARE this book be given such a beautiful cover.

[Zoë · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m sorry but … what was that ? I have so many things I want to say but my brain just cannot process any of it because it’s all so … insane

[Blabli Pazo · Rating 2 out of 5]

This reads like a not great YA manuscript with swear words added in. I'm just going to be brief because there is not much to say. (Also spoiler free)

The characters are flat and one note, the protagonist is annoying in a bad way but the author tries to convince you they are actually really cool and profound, the murderer can be guessed in the first 3 chapters just by using genre conventions, the world building would be lacking even for a middle grade book, basic at best and contradictory at worst, the political message is just not well thought out, the author doesn't seem to know the meaning of the word subtlety either.

In other words, it's a character driven fantasy murder mystery, that has cardboard cutouts for characters with world building fit for a children's book and a mystery you can solve in the first half hour just by virtue of having read a murder mystery before.

I'm going to give it two stars instead of one just because the idea for the story is interesting and the author seems like a genuinely nice person, it's a shame the book they wrote just falls apart at the seams.

[hannah⁷ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*
THIS WAS SO FUN.

It took me a bit to really get into it because I didn’t immediately vibe with the setting and some of the world building elements, but eventually I got pretty used to it. I also felt that there was a lot of information being thrown at me all at once in the beginning. It did help a lot to understand each of the providences and the Blessed that came from them, so I’m not too mad ab that.

I loved how diverse each providence was and how all of the characters were very unique. I was a little scared I was gonna get them all mixed up somehow but the author did a great job of creating distinct voices for each of them that also tied into which providence they were from.

I read a lot of reviews before starting this and I was so worried I was gonna hate the tone, especially because it was told through Dee’s POV. BUT I really didn’t have an issue with that at all, and I actually really loved him as a character. I thought he was funny, so I enjoyed the narrative tone and I felt that it added a lot to the story.

This definitely read like a YA novel which I didn’t hate, and sure Dee was maybe a little immature for a 22yo(?) but do I care? Not really…I still love him and this was so much fun.

Also the romance?!?! I screamed a couple times ngl…Also regarding the mystery, I definitely saw some of the twists coming (probably a little later than I should have (?) maybe not idk) but there were definitely some that I didn’t see coming.

[Emma Sterner-Radley · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a lovely and human story! There’s heartbreak, intrigue, romance, magic, grief, humour, and a nice dose of Found Family - all wrapped up in a locked room mystery like none other. The characters are extremely fleshed out and the twists are clever. You really shouldn’t miss this unique story!

[laith ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not to be rude but I HATED this book. It began pretty great, Dee was pretty annoying but at least funny, the worldbuilding was simple but effective, then I started getting annoyed. Firstly, the worldbuilding constantly contradicted itself and it just made no sense. The most annoying thing about it was the whole "the crabs had an illegitimate heir so we kicked them out of our circle, but ox is an illegitimate child but it's ok if he is!" Like what? Also I absolutely HATED that everyone was a stereotype. Inclusivity is not "insert x stereotype here." Tendai's stereotype made me pretty upset. She was clearly Arab coded, dare I day even Palestinian coded, and White authors LOVE to steal tragedies and suffering that happens in POC communities and put them in their books. She had a fucking scimitar, "head wrap" not hijab, and her back story literally sounded like the literal occupation and genocide in Palestine (P.S. I'm Palestinian!) Then Dee and his bi stereotypes omgggg he wanted to fuck everything in a 1 mile radius even when he was utterly enamored with whoever. Goodness. And of course Nergui, the creepy hateful nonbinary spider is aroace and just stuck that into conversation for no reason lmao.
At one point Tendai told Dee to strip completely seriously, so he did, then she said she was joking? What?
Dee fell in love with Wyatt WAY too quickly, but it didn't really matter DID IT?!
The most infuriating part of this book was the Ravi twist. When I tell you I guessed this immediately when he was found dead but was like "nahh that's a cop out and Wyatt is a great character so it's ok" 😐 I HATEDDDD this. This made me so unbelieveably upset. It eliminated a lot of purpose of the story. I liked Wyatt as a character because he truly was the only one with character development, and turns out he was Ravi? And Dee didn't even care at all about that??? We didn't even see Ravi and Dee like grow together as people or as a couple because Ravi was Wyatt....Just so upsetting. I did not buy their romance. I would have bought Wyatt and Dee's romance if Dee wasn't in love with him in 0.2 seconds but he wasn't even a real character. Lame. Also Ravi was like a horrible person but it's ok bc he cut his hand off...
I hated the Cordelia and Leofric twist too. It was just dumb. Like everybody was murdering everybody for the powers...Also Dee getting not only his blessing but ALL the blessings tears the entire levity of the story apart. I think if he continued to not have any blessings it could prove you are still a wonderful and worthwhile person despite no powers....Whatever.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 star

Let me start by saying this, this book is funny as hell. I was reading reviews before I started this book and a lot of the people mentioned how they didn't like the style of the writing and the narrator, but I personally love it. I love nothing more than reading a book that surprises me because it did.

The way the author writes is unlike any other fantasy books I've read. The narrator is quirky, flamboyant, humorous, at times narcissistic, sarcastic and he's also the biggest loser I've ever come upon. Yes, he's a loser. Through and through. Born into the lowest of the lowest province and he has no magic. So he uses his humor as a form of defense mechanism. I like that he's not the usual MC that we've read. And I like that the author writes like a GenZ because it's just different. It felt almost refreshing reading this.

And now let's talk about the plot. I would say the author did a great job on the mystery behind the murders. It's very much Agatha Christie's Death on a Nile kinda vibe where passengers are being killed off one by one and the MC has to investigate and find the murderer before it's too late. And as usual, everyone has their own secrets so it was kinda difficult to pinpoint who the mastermind is until the twist was revealed. I had my suspicions, but I didn't have the information or the motive.

And the TWIST. Oh, my bloody goddess! The twist came out of nowhere. The author hinted at it. I even highlighted and marked the clues, but when it was revealed, my jaw fucking dropped. Of course, the author's not going to leave anything unanswered, of course, she's going to tell us how this is all going to tie up and make sense. She played the long game and I loved it.

Now the part I didn't like about the book is also the part that I said I liked. Some of the dialogues feel cringy and awkward. And the characters feel like they know what an iPhone is, so they can be a little unbelievable. Like I get the tone of the story, but some of them just give me the ick. And I feel like the story could benefit from a duology instead of a standalone. There's so much story the author could give us, the world that she's built is a rich one and I'd love to explore more. Especially the story with the Crabs because there's so much you can expand.

But overall, solid plot. Love the murder mystery. Love the MC and how eccentric he is. If you want a book with cosy murder mystery, this one's for you.

[elle ☾ · Rating 1 out of 5]

“I’m not like other bears.” Can’t make this shit up.

Think obnoxious, really annoying MC that reads like a 14 year old, but is apparently 20 something and just randomly throws out curse words just because and says the most off the wall things. This feels very young YA with some profanity sprinkled in. Maybe not even YA, maybe middle-grade.

IF I COULD UNREAD THIS—

The audiobook narrator 🫢 The voices were out of control omg. Accents I’ve never heard in my life and pretty sure don’t even exist somehow came to be. Thank everything good that I did not buy a physical copy of this book.

Ganymedes, lord of the fish, a fake blessed. How many times was the word “piss fish” used in this thing, at least 100 times. Yeah, you read that correctly. This dude, Ganymedes, is one of the 12 Blessed (but not actually) who’s on some like weird cruise for 12 days? People are getting killed, including his first love. But then he falls in love quickly with Wyatt? Idk guys I was so lost. They were getting hot in bothered IN FRONT OF A 6 YEAR OLD. Nuhhhhh.

Also it felt like this author was checking off boxes of skin color and sexuality, not interested in actually developing the characters beyond this. Character depth who? World building where? Main character is saying what?!

Well, I can’t say I didn’t laugh out loud at the sheer stupidity of parts of this book. Some of these lines just came out of nowhere.
•”I’m just a piss fish pretending to be a shark.”
•“Goddess knows I have magical seed.”
•“If I am a dumpling, my father is a breadstick.”
•“HE DOESN’T LIKE BEING CALLED BASTARD SO DON’T CALL HIM A BASTARD.”
•“I’ve never heard anyone talk about crabs like you did at that trial.”

💀 Where the hell is Imogen to erase my memory.