It is always a pleasure to discover a new and interesting fantasy world and Peter Newman has definitely created one here in my opinion. This tells the story of House Sapphire, one of the ruling Deathless families who come under attack from assassins in an attempt to end their family line. Simultaneously we have the Wild in which live demons of many forms that can be appeased, but at a price. Firstly, I always enjoy a tale from multiple perspectives and this one follows four people as they navigate the political and demonic dangers surrounding them. I will say that it took me a little while to get into the narrative, but once I did, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The world is well drawn and has a scope that feels expansive. I also really like the notion of the Deathless - the way in which they re-live lives and how that impacts on their decisions and behaviours. I am eager to read the next instalment as there are some cliffhanger elements to the end here that I can't wait to have explained. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I haven't read any of Newman's other books {yet} this was a pleasant enough read. Quickly establishing a rogue assassin team trying to kill a royal bloodline off before the new host can get one of the Deathless transferred in an ancient ritual. Reigning from above, the Deathless and their houses {the main one is Sapphire in this tale} protect their people below from the Wild, an ancient enemy possibly formed by magicks of their forebears. I loved getting to know the different elements of the houses and their characters easy to recognise after a couple of chapters. I liked the crystal gardeners growing their {the Deathless'} armour to fit and respond to their forms. I read it in a few days so kept my attention. Will keep an eye out for book 2, have read other books it reminded me of so not totally new but it was an enjoyable fantasy romp.

The Crystal immortal Deathless face an enemy in the Wild, but one Hunt will shed light on the plans and schemes lurking under the surface of their perfect society. I was initially quite excited to read The Deathless - although I hadn’t read any of Peter Newman’s other books, I had heard The Vagrant had gotten some great reviews. The book also has a such great blurb that I was really drawn in and eager to read it. I must admit, however, that I was quite disappointed with The Deathless. I understand that the book is set up to be the first in a trilogy, which usually means there is a lot of set up and world building which can feel a little slow before the main story line kicks in. However, I actually found myself crying out for more explanation and backstory of the world. The blurb tells us of ‘seven timeless royal families… fight to keep the Wild at bay’, yet we are only told about one of them – House Sapphire and very little of anyone else. The Wild felt very thinly drawn out – I wanted to know why these creatures existed, what they wanted and what they had done before but it was all kept very hush-hush. There were other things that I wanted to know more about – for example the animals in this world are all ‘kins’ (dogkin, mousekin) etc and described as having one human eye – no other explanation is given and the animals act like normal animals – how were they made? Are they natural or human-made? For a book that is very entrenched in politics, it felt like there were no stakes for the reader as we weren’t drawn into the world through backstory and narrative. The story is told through 3 main perspectives and the truly odd perspective of an infant child which I thought was very jarring. It felt like that was the only way Newman could think of to tell that part of the story after the child left the adults. The three characters all felt a bit samey and to tell you the truth I didn’t empathise or really care what happened to any of them. Pari in particular should have been a really intriguing and feisty character whom I should have automatically been rooting for but she was just as bland as the other three. The writing just didn’t inspire me and the characters and plot meant I was happy to put the book down after this first instalment and not pick it up again for books 2 or 3. Overall The Deathless had such great potential from it’s blurb but got lost in lack of world building and bland characters. Thank you to NetGalley & HarperCollins UK – HarperVoyager for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.