Everyone knows this is the lesbian necromancers in space book, but somehow THIS BOOK IS SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT?!

Gideon's snarky voice pulled me right into this story. Her cavalier, aloof attitude was very fun to read. But then the book transforms into a story with a mysterious trial, challenges that bend the necromancers abilities, and a shadowy monster that is picking the participants off one by one. It's a closed door mystery, but done in a way that felt fresh. I truly felt like I had no idea what was going to happen next while reading!

Gideon and Harrows backstory and relationship development was so fucking good. This book has some of the most romantic lines I've read between two people who could hardly admit they enjoyed the others company. I ate that shit up!

In regards to the world building and sometimes confusing aspects of this book, I feel like a significant part of the leg work is becoming familiar with the character list at the begging of the book. Once I was able to distinguish between the houses, necromancers, cavaliers, etc I felt like the story made significantly more sense. There are some aspects of the world that could have been explained more thoroughly and some that were explained exhaustively. Overall, I didn't find these details to be distracting nor a hurdle to enjoy the story.

I really enjoyed this book and the ending KILLED ME. I will be jumping into the second one ASAP!