Hello Bookworms!

I hope you’re all doing well and have some great plans for Christmas. Christmas eve is just a day away, and I’m really excited to spend some quality time with family. It finally snowed yesterday and with the lethal wind chill (negative 30 degrees!) I was pretty much confined indoors, which led to me finishing another book.

This time I read The Necromancer’s Daughter by D. Wallace Peach.

Having read several books by this author, I knew I was in for an epic fantasy adventure with great worldbuilding and characters. This book came out back in August 2022, but with grad school semester I wasn’t able to read until now. It kind of worked out, because this book has a wintry theme to it.

Alright, so did this book stack up to Peach’s other works? Keep reading to find out!

Blurb

A healer with the talent to unravel death. A stillborn child brought to life. A father lusting for vengeance. And a son torn between justice, faith, and love. Caught in a chase spanning kingdoms, each must decide the nature of good and evil, the lengths they will go to survive, and what they are willing to lose.

A healer and dabbler in the dark arts of life and death, Barus is as gnarled as an ancient tree. Forgotten in the chaos of the dying queen’s chamber, he spirits away her stillborn infant and in a hovel at the meadow’s edge, breathes life into the wisp of a child. He names her Aster for the lea’s white flowers. Raised as his daughter, she, too, learns to heal death.

Denied a living heir, the widowed king spies from a distance. But he heeds the claims of the fiery Vicar of the Red Order—in the eyes of the Blessed One, Aster is an abomination, and to embrace the evil of resurrection will doom his rule.

As the king’s life nears its end, he defies the vicar’s warning and summons the necromancer’s daughter. For his boldness, he falls to an assassin’s blade. Armed with righteousness and iron-clad conviction, the Order’s brothers ride into the leas to cleanse the land of evil.

To save her father’s life, Aster leads them beyond Verdane’s wall into the Forest of Silvern Cats, a wilderness of dragons and barbarian tribes. Unprepared for a world rife with danger and unchecked power, a world divided by those who practice magic and those who hunt them, she must choose whether to trust the one man offering her aid, the one man most likely to betray her—her enemy’s son.

~*~

From best-selling fantasy author D. Wallace Peach comes a retelling of the legend of Kwan-yin, the Chinese Goddess of Mercy. Set in a winter world of dragons, intrigue, and magic, The Necromancer’s Daughter is a story about duty, defiance, cruelty, and sacrifice— an epic tale of compassion and deep abiding love where good and evil aren’t what they seem.

GoodReads

Amazon

***Brief disclosure***

I am an Amazon affiliate and earn a tiny commission for purchases made through the Amazon links in this post at no cost to you. It’s a great way to help me keep things running on my blog if you’re already intrigued enough to make a purchase. 

The Review

This read was an epic fantasy journey, and I had a ton of fun!

The novel centers on a young woman named Aster. Born deceased from a queen who died during childbirth, a necromancer named Barus takes her corpse back to his humble abode and brings her back to life. Since then he’s raised her from infancy, teaching her how to help her fellow man in the ways of healing, but when a visit from the king goes awry, it starts a perilous and relentless journey for survival. Can Aster escape the men who pursue her and the crown she doesn’t want?

I loved the main character Aster and Barus. Barus is kind and intelligent, and despite his physical handicap and sad circumstance he helps people with his necromancy. Aster is innocent, curious, but also stubborn, and her personality made sense given her lot in life. I enjoyed both of their journeys as the novel progressed.

Another shout out goes to Teko. I loved the Catticut people and their strange ways, but especially Teko for his lighthearted way of looking at things. It helped when situations got truly difficult.

Joreh was the only character I felt conflicted about, mainly for his fence straddling on two main ideologies, but by the end his true nature shined and I was pleased with that.

There was some great worldbuilding in this novel, and I especially loved the winter theme since it’s December. The magic theme to this world is both subtle and not so subtle, and the system really worked for me.

The plot was engaging and fast paced, something I go for in my reads, and I couldn’t be happier with how things turned out. If you need some winter themed fantasy in your life, you’ve gotta pick this one up!

That’s A Wrap!

Well that’s it for this book review. I hope you enjoyed it!

Have you read this book? Are there other similar books you’ve read that you simply have to gush about? Feel free to leave a comment. I’d love to start a conversation!

Have a great day!

Join My ARC Review Team | Subscribe

 Facebook | GoodReads | Bookbub | Tumblr | Instagram