Posted by Okay. That cover made me super nervous. I can enjoy a romance from time to time but they aren’t my typical reads. If it gets too romancey, I’m out. I lose interest very fast with many of the common romance tropes… and this cover looks like all the romance tropes got together and had a romance-mega-baby. I was not expecting the goodly amount of necromancy and dead shit that’s in this book.
There are two main characters, a the married couple, they’ve been together a while, and the relationship is pretty solid. So, we’re skipping over the whole budding romance stuff with all the UST, smoldering eyes, and chiseled jaws. You, dear reader, have no idea how happy that makes me. I love me some older married couples that know what’s what and are navigating a deep and more time-worn relationship. There’s a pretty big issue that’s been plaguing these two and it’s the fact that the wife’s magic is forbidden.
Morana is a boneweaver and through her bloodgift she can absorb the memories of the dead. People don’t like this because not only can she retrieve the memories of the dead, she can also reanimate them. She can basically make herself a merry little horde of undead minions. It’s not surprising to Morana that people don’t like seeing their dead dad run across a field while mostly decayed, and then collapse into a heap when she loses connection with him. But, ya know, she’s got to defend herself from the boneweaver hunters somehow, and the dude was already dead, so why not turn him into fodder while she makes an escape? She does have morals and doesn’t like doing this, but when you press a boneweaver into a corner, you should expect zombies.
I enjoyed the different sort of perspective she has on death. She finds it comforting and relaxing when she’s observing a death or feeling a life on the verge of dying. She knows that by writing down the stories of the dead, the memories of those that are gone, she’s keeping them alive. She’s able to commune with the long dead or the recently dead, and there are differences in the intensity of the voices depending on how long they’ve been gone. She can sense bones as she walks over them and can tell who they were, so walking over a graveyard is like walking over a bunch of people shouting their life stories at her. Kind of a strange phenomena. Little details scattered throughout the book like the fact that she can become overwhelmed by an urge to write down the stories of the dead, she doesn’t like eating meat because of the warped ways the memories appear in flesh vs. bone, and other nuances really brought the magic system to life and made it feel “natural/real”.
Her husband is a healer, also known as a flesh mender IIRC, and he spends most of his time acting as a town healer/medicine man. Since he’s passionate about what he does he doesn’t often lose a patient, and when he does, he takes it hard. He’s gone to an academy and has been registered with the Powers that Be, so he really shouldn’t have to be a backwater healer, but since Morana is constantly on the run/in hiding, he’s been forced to make a simpler life for himself than he may otherwise have had. He also has a super rare ability in that he’s also a plant-magic-person. Lol, I’m sorry but I didn’t take notes and I can’t recall what the specific in-world name for that is. So, for instance, if he has a seed he can make a plant grow in just a moment’s time and pops flowers into existence to amuse kids — if you hadn’t gathered, he’s a gentle soul.
There is a strong theme of herbs and plants throughout the book. Percy uses them to create potions and heal people, and with that comes an emphasis on non-visual descriptors like scents and taste. There’s also a few chapters almost solely focused on baking and deserts. I got a bit hungry. For me, personally, it really brings the scenes to life since I’m someone who struggles with visualization. That said, there are some passages that were too purple for my taste. The prose here can be very flowery, poetic, and a touch wordy. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s overburdened and clunky, I just don’t tend to resonate with super “mushy” passages and writing style.
The character work here was great. These two were very different from one another and they complimented each other nicely. Morana struggles with her depression and anxiety as well as chronic illness, so she may be a character people are looking for. Not only that but she’s a Big Lady, those who enjoy the larger-lady representation such as Lady Sybil from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld or Brienne from ASOIAF may find her refreshing as well — she’s also taller than Percy and you really do not see that often in romance. The cast of characters is small, there are a few meaningful side characters that make appearances but the focus is really on the married couple, and because of that, they get a lot of page time and feel very fleshed out.
Overall, I felt this was a solid entry. Your mileage may vary depending on what you’re looking for, but there aren’t many books I’ve read that are necRomances.