Title: Masters of Death
Author: Olivie Blake
Genre: Fantasy, paranormal fantasy
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group
Publication Date: 2018 originally, read the 2023 Tor edition
Format: Hardcover
Length: 384 pages

Read if you like: Contemporary fantasy settings, paranormal fantasy aspects, found family, mystery, complicated emotional baggage, sharp wit

Rating: 

Olivie Blake has done it again. There hasn’t been a single book of hers that I haven’t loved, and Masters of Death was no different.

This book was weird, wonderful, and emotional. Full of her signature writing style, which is introspective and clever and plays a little with the traditional form of a novel, you’re immediately immersed in this complicated yet familiar-feeling contemporary fantasy. I loved the combination of fantastical and paranormal creatures with the mundane aspects of human life, as well as the dual settings of both modern-day Chicago and the afterlife/illegal gambling ring run by Death. 

The premise was so unique on this one that I knew it would be entertaining, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it was also emotionally moving. Blake continues to be one of my favourite authors ever, and if you’ve ever enjoyed any of her other works, I’d highly encourage you to pick up this super original fantasy stand-alone. 

The Book: Masters of Death by Olivie Blake

Masters of Death follows two primary characters, though in each of the character’s lives are a slew of sub-characters that are critical to both the plot and the development of each of them.

Viola Marek is a semi-recently turned vampire who, after being bitten and accidentally murdering a colleague, found herself starting over in Chicago as a real estate agent. She stumbles upon a community of otherworldly creatures and manages to make friends with several, who help her cope with her new situation and adjust to living under her new circumstances. They also work to assist her on her new listing, which would be a prestigious find of a house through its connections to one of the most wealthy old money families in Chicago, if not for the poltergeist of the murdered previous owner who refuses to allow Viola to make the sale.

Fox D’Mora is our other main character and is none other than the godson of death. Having been bestowed the title after his dying parents begged Death to raise their son (which he begrudgingly accepted), Fox has since secured a degree of immortality and ensured that he spent the time swindling humans as a fake medium. Death is eternally frustrated by Fox’s preclusion for dishonesty and debauchery, but very clearly loves him nonetheless.

The characters eventually converge as Viola seeks out Fox on the advice of her other creature friends for his assistance in ridding her listing of Tom, the dead former owner-turned-haunting ghost. As Fox becomes entangled in her issues (very much against his will), it becomes clear that Tom is a part of a much larger, centuries-long set of circumstances that entangle death, Fox’s former lover, and an illegal gambling ring hosted by Death himself. This weird group of people all come together once they find that Death has been captured as a result of this game, and they find they have to work together, breaking down all of their external and internal barriers, in the hopes that they can restore balance to the universe and extract themselves from the increasingly worrying and complicated immortal plot. 

The Review

This was such a weird and wonderful book. I had no idea what to expect from it since it combined so many seemingly unrelated paranormal and fantasy elements, but I quickly grew to love it through Blake’s gorgeous storytelling. 

I love everything about Blake’s writing. She plays with form in such a fun way, presenting her narrative unconventionally, unfolding the plot of Masters of Death in a traditional third-person dialogue, but also alternating through scenes that feel more like a play or prose than a straight narrative.

I also appreciate her willingness to inventively examine huge philosophical topics. Like the Atlas series, Masters of Death spends a decent amount of time in the psyche of the characters, but the narrative as a whole is also this fascinating examination of the meaning of death, life, God, and what’s right and wrong. It’s a fascinating story that reimagines traditional religious characters and pillars, and it (quite literally at times) forces you to look squarely at traditional perceptions of life, death, and the afterlife and ask, is this reimagining crazy? Is any imagining of these constructs strictly reasonable given that at the end of the day, none of us know anything about it? What are the limits to our perceptions, what are our shared experiences with the holy and the sinful? What makes us worthy? What makes a life worth living? My head was spinning with the amount of reflection I was doing, and my heart was breaking for these fantasy characters who were all struggling through very human emotional traumas and dilemmas. 

So much of the book is a suspense that as you’re coming up to learning what “the game” is and how it’s possible it could have scandalized and captivated every immortal known to mankind, it feels like Blake couldn’t possibly deliver a concept that’s juicy enough to meet the expectations she’s building. Somehow though, she does, and it’s even more impactful than you expect it to be. You learn what the game is, and it’s ethereal and conceptual and emotional and somehow, the magnitude of it is not decreased in seeing it finally play out. You’re left in wonder as the characters begin to participate, and you understand acutely why it is that no one ever seems to win. 

I found this book to be wildly original and it somehow had me simultaneously crying, laughing, and questioning my perceptions of the afterlife and what it means to be human. If you’ve ever enjoyed other books by Olivie Blake, or if something both clever and emotionally raw sounds appealing to you, I’d definitely recommend giving this book a go. It’s one I think I’ll still be thinking about for a long time to come.