Categories: Young Adult, Romance, Horror, Gothic, Fairy Tale Retelling, Fantasy
Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**
Thank you to Delacorte Press for giving me a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review!
This is the story of Hazel, a young healer navigating a ruthless court to save the life of the king, grappling with a pantheon of gods with questionable agendas as she fights for agency and true love in her own life as the goddaughter of none other than Death himself.
All gifts come with a price.
Hazel Trépas has always known she wasn’t like the rest of her siblings. A thirteenth child, promised away to one of the gods, she spends her childhood waiting for her godfather—Merrick, the Dreaded End—to arrive.
When he does, he lays out exactly how he’s planned Hazel’s future. She will become a great healer, known throughout the kingdom for her precision and skill. To aid her endeavors, Merrick blesses Hazel with a gift, the ability to instantly deduce the exact cure needed to treat the sick.
But all gifts come with a price. Hazel can see when Death has claimed a patient—when all hope is gone—and is tasked to end their suffering, permanently. Haunted by the ghosts of those she’s killed, Hazel longs to run. But destiny brings her to the royal court, where she meets Leo, a rakish prince with a disdain for everything and everyone. And it’s where Hazel faces her biggest dilemma yet—to save the life of a king marked to die. Hazel knows what she is meant to do and knows what her heart is urging her toward, but what will happen if she goes against the will of Death?
From the astonishing mind of Erin A. Craig comes the breathtaking fairy tale retelling readers have been waiting for— what does a life well-lived mean, and how do we justify the impossible choices we make for the ones we love?
I didn’t know what to expect from this book but I love this author’s work and this did not disappoint at all. It surprised me and made me fall in love with Hazel and Merrick. This might be my favorite book of 2024.
I had to look up what this book was a retelling of and found that it’s a retelling of The Brother’s Grimm story called Godfather Death. I had never heard of it so I was invested in Hazel’s story right away. She’s the thirteenth child in a family who was too poor to take care of her. Three different gods come to offer to take care of her, but it’s Merrick, God of Death who has the honor of being her godfather. Their story is so complicated, yet morbidly sweet. He takes care of her the only way how an immortal god knows how and it’s endearing and strange because everyone is afraid of death. But not Hazel.
He gives her the life he promised her bio parents but it’s not an easy life. She is needed in the community for her healing talents and power, but because death is inevitable in a mortal’s life, she also has to make hard decisions like helping her patients seek peace by ending their lives. Hazel experiences love, friendship and even a found family but betrayal and making mistakes of her own to the detriment of her already fragile and strange relationship with Merrick. She also learns about the consequences of her actions.
The romance is sweet, the secondary characters all provided something to the story and I just enjoyed how the story made me think about and question things about life like love, death, parenting, power, religion, grief, making decisions and facing consequences. This book really has everything – it has paranormal elements, fantasy, romance, and even body horror (it’s gross but I think tolerable). And it made me cry at the end because there is just something about Merrick and Hazel that touched my heart. Him yearning to fill a void in him (as her godfather) and her needed a void to be filled because her birth parents neglected her.
My Thoughts:
I love this book so much and I’ll have to buy a hardcopy to have on my shelf so I can reread it again. It’s beautifully written and moved me to tears by the end. It’s my favorite book of 2024 so far!
Happy September everyone! Here we are in the start of the “Ber” months and it’s kind of exciting and kind of overwhelming thinking of the holidays coming up.
This week we had some tropical storms pass us by – so it was rainy, windy and humid (yuck). My son also turned 12 on Tuesday so we are going over to his grandparents house today to have a birthday lunch with family. He is in a Kirby (Nintendo game) era so all his gifts from me was Kirby themed like a keyboard, a Nintendo Switch case, a shirt, etc…
His school had an Open House on Friday so we went to check it out and I had fun meeting his teachers and seeing their classrooms. He has an elective class which is a Drones class and I was so impressed with their equipment in there and to learn how kids are learning how to build drones and code. The advanced drone team even competes nationally with high schoolers even though they are a middle school and then even won first place last year! I was like wow…my elective back in the 90’s that I picked was Calligraphy 😆. It was that or like sewing or something – I mean we also had home-ec in 8th where we learned to sew and cook but yeah…DRONES is his elective. He gets Woodshop (this seems to be a classic elective lol – I had woodshop), Video Production and some Nature elective in the next quarters.
Tomorrow is Labor Day here in the USA so it’ll be nice to sleep in!
The Songbird & the Heart of Stone by. Carissa Broadbent
Truly, Madly, Deeply by. Alexandria Bellefleur
Currently Reading:
Fledgling by. S.K. Ali
Heir by. Sabaa Tahir
The Match by. Sarah Adams (audiobook)
Shows/Movies/Music I Watched/Listened To:
Sailor Moon Cosmos (Netflix) – my kids and I watched this one and it’s so wild lol…my favorite is one of the Three Lights Guardians and her saying “Gentle Uterus!” as her power 😂 It’s so ridiculous but we have so much fun watching Sailor Moon and I loved Chibi Chibi. Anyway, I WISH my uterus was gentle smh…😆
Die with a Smile – Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars – on repeat – it’s so good!🥰
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
Past Midnight Book Reviews & More 