Culture Cabinet

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got the new audiobook of Olivie Blake’s Masters of Death. You might know her name from the TikTok viral hit novel The Atlas Six, which I haven’t read yet. But I was familiar with some of the Harry Potter fanfiction that she wrote in years past, so I was more than willing to give the new audiobook of her 2018 novel a try.

Masters of Death was an absolute delight. Blake does an excellent job of balancing a stacked cast of characters, from humans to demons to mermaids. Fox D’Mora is the godson of Death, who has lived far past what his mortal lifetime should allow. He’s a conman convincing clients he can communicate with ghosts, a seducer of many of those same clients, and a surly pseudo-son to Death, trying to rid him of his bad habit of cussing. He’s also still trying to get over a relationship from centuries ago with Brandt, a demigod who left him without explanation.

Our other main character is Viola Marek, a vampire real estate agent who is desperately trying to sell a mansion haunted by the ghost of Thomas Edward Parker IV, who is as pretentious as his name would suggest. Despite their seeming differences and how much she needs his ghost to stop messing up her showings of the house, the two have formed an unlikely friendship.

Our third couple is made up of angel Mayra Kaleka and reaper Calix Sanna, who both attempt to help Fox along his way. But they’re also eager to spend time around each other despite not being supposed to have a relationship. They were, admittedly, my favorites.

The plots finally converge when Viola books Fox to attempt to exorcise her ghost, but they and their companions are pulled into an immortal problem. They must save the world from the Demon King by beating him at the immortal game that’s gotten Fox’s ex-lover into trouble many times before.

Sound complicated? It is, but Blake handles the overlapping plot lines and the large cast of characters with the ease of a much more established writer. She also throws in some hilariously grumpy archangels who are not too pleased they need to ask a mortal and a creature for help.

It’s the type of book that you speed through reading, partially because the characters are so endearing that you don’t want to step away from them and partially because there are so many mysterious elements that you are waiting to see unfold. It can get a little confusing at times, because there are so many plot points that Blake doesn’t reveal until later in the book, but it’s definitely a “trust the process” experience because everything makes sense by the end.

The audiobook is a particularly fun listen because narrator Steve West does a great job providing each character with their own voice and accent. He makes it very engaging and does a better job than many at ensuring that you can tell who each piece of dialogue belongs to (which is often my problem with audiobooks).

Masters of Death is the kind of book that I plan to return to (likely multiple times) in the future, and has made me very excited to check out some of Blake’s other work. I’ve really not read anything like it; the combination of fantasy and humor works so well but is so unique.

I was given an ARC of this audiobook by Net Galley and Macmillan Audio in exchange for an honest review. The audiobook of Masters of Death will be released on August 8, 2023.