#Saint Death’s Daughter

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads

Saint Death’s Daughter

slowbuilding and intricate queer fantasy in a world with 12 gods and different forms of magic

Miscellaneous “Lanie” Stones, a necromancer born into an infamous family of royal assassins who’d rather stay away from All Of That, has to call her dangerous older sister back home to deal with family debt

but she causes some much bigger problems, and leaves Lanie to deal with them, plus her child and the child’s traumatized father

a revenant housekeeper. a vengeful 7 year old with too many knives. a parliament of wizards who turn into birds. a dog called underwear. there's a lot going on in here

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

his daughter is not a weapon!

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

Joan of Arc Praying - Eleanor Fortesque-Brickdale // Joan of Arc - William Etty // Strangers - Ethel Cain

[the-z-part]

I've been trying to figure out how to pitch Saint Death's Daughter to the Locked Tomb girlies because like they have a lot in common, but at the same time the tone is super different, so if you go into SDD expecting TLT you'll be wrong but also I really think they'll like it!

And it just came to me:

Saint Death's Daughter is the Barbie to The Locked Tomb's Oppenheimer

[morkaischosen]

You've read Saint Death's Daughter? Oh, hell yeah

yeah!! absolute banger of a book. things I love about it include the sense of humour, the absolute commitment to the elaborate grotesquerie of the Stones' gothic history, that gorgeous note of queer community that shows up midway through, the way the presence of the divine is written, and of course aaaaaall those Women's Wrongs.

[swordbisexual]

I’m not saying that reading an actual printed book with lovely prose and lyrical, gently-immersive worldbuilding has fixed me, but god, it’s inspired me and helped crack some of the creative block.

[drastrochris]

Hi! Go read Saint Death's Daughter!

Do you like Gideon the Ninth, and Harrow, but want to think about if she were sunshine and rainbows?

Let me tell you about Lanie Stones!

She's got:

This whole religion thing around her.

Toxic relatives.

But if SexPal was royalty.

Best friend: Dead friend.

It's a baby. I'm not going to be a jerk to a frickin' baby.

Did you order the skeleton war? I've got a delivery here for "skeleton war," and it has your address.

[literary-illuminati]

50 pages into Saint Death's Daughter and I will admit that my extremely uncharitable first reaction is 'publishers have really noticed The Locked Tomb, huh"

[lesmisscraper]

The Last Moment of Valjean, Volume 5, Book 9, Chapter 5.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

[kaerinio]

something something dany with mel medarda's makeup. something something, dany with mel medarda's makeup, but in targaryen red instead of gold.

[aroaessidhe]

read in 2023: ghosts

The Immeasurable Depth of You

All That Consumes Us

The Spirit Bears Its Teeth

Saint Death’s Daughter

Sixteen Souls

Painted Devils

Radiant

He Who Drowned The World

She Is A Haunting

[artemisbarnowl]

Clytemnestra did nothing wrong

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

Scenes from the Life of Joan of Arc - Albert Maignan // Strangers - Ethel Cain

[ursineknight]

"...Lanie could still hear her god whispering: 'I have such work for you.'"

Miscellaneous Immiscible (Lanie) Stones and Doédenna, Saint Death, from C. S. E. Cooney's Saint Death's Daughter!

[jetwhenitsmidnight]

Saint Death's Daughter by C. S. E. Cooney

Publisher: Solaris

Genre: Fantasy

If you like:

Necromancers who love pink 💕

The Locked Tomb series

Found family

Queernorm world-building

Skeletons and bones

Intricate magic systems

Footnotes!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Synopsis

Lanie Stones, the daughter of the Royal Assassin and Chief Executioner of Liriat, has never led a normal life. Born with a gift for necromancy and a literal allergy to violence, she was raised in isolation in the family’s crumbling mansion by her oldest friend, the ancient revenant Goody Graves.

When her parents are murdered, it falls on Lanie and her cheerfully psychotic sister Nita to settle their extensive debts or lose their ancestral home—and Goody with it. Appeals to Liriat's ruler to protect them fall on indifferent ears… until she, too, is murdered, throwing the nation's future into doubt.

Hunted by Liriat’s enemies, hounded by her family’s creditors and terrorised by the ghost of her great-grandfather, Lanie will need more than luck to get through the next few months—but when the goddess of Death is on your side, anything is possible.

Content warnings

death, murder, violence, torture, kidnapping, slavery

gore, body horror, blood

familial abuse, child abuse, domestic abuse: physical, verbal and emotional

parental death

self-harm for magic purposes

abusive relationship

animal cruelty, animal death

grief, depression

fantasy racism and xenophobia

physical confinement

childhood chronic illness

alcohol

Review

Saint Death's Daughter is the first book of the trilogy, followed by Saint Death's Herald, but it wraps up the main arc well-enough that it can be read as a standalone.

This is a wildly ambitious novel that, according to the acknowledgements, took over ten years to write? and it shows. The amount of world-building that goes into the gods, the magic system, the different countries as well as their respective cultures and forms of governance is simply astounding.

Although the synopsis is an accurate summary of the events of this book, every turn still took me by surprise, and I never knew what to expect.

Our protagonist, Miscellaneous "Lanie" Stones is full of heart and gumption. I loved her love; Lanie loves her friends and her reanimated creations and life and Death so earnestly and sincerely, with her whole heart, in spite of her upbringing. I'm also obsessed with the fact that, even though she is a necromancer, she loves bright colours and dressing in poofy pink dresses.

Not to say that this book is all sunshine and rainbows; Lanie goes through it, and this book turned out to be much darker than I had expected. (Check the content warnings!) But she manages to get through it with her newfound friends and family.

It's also really interesting how Lanie has a literal allergy to violence; violence is basically a given in most fantasy novels, so reading about how Lanie navigates violence in a world full of nothing but was fascinating.

Honestly, I could go on about this book for hours, but I think it's best to go into this knowing less about what happens.

[swordbisexual]

So used to romance writing mode that it’s weird to shift into what I have realized is just “evil Bildungsroman” mode but here we are!