A novice who speaks to the dead must bond with a vengeful spirit to stop an army of the risen — and learn to trust it.
- Score
- 78.8
- Spice
- 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️Closed door
- POV
- first
- Ending
- HEA / HFN
Tropes
Content warnings
Curated signals, not an exhaustive guarantee.
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What readers think
Readers consistently praise the central dynamic between Artemisia and the snarky, sardonic revenant as the heart of the book — frequently compared to the Venom symbiote relationship. The gothic medieval setting, atmospheric prose, and the book's confident lack of romance are widely celebrated, especially Artemisia's implied aromantic/asexual identity as natural representation. On the critical side, some readers find the magic system underexplained and the world-building over-complicated with too many tiers of spirits. Pacing is occasionally flagged as uneven, with a slow middle and an ending that feels anticlimactic relative to the buildup.
Read it if
- · Readers who want fantasy with zero romance and a fierce, neurodivergent-coded heroine
- · Fans of gothic atmosphere, religious world-building, and morally grey supernatural companions
- · Anyone who loved the Venom dynamic and wants it in a YA medieval fantasy
Skip it if
- · Readers who need a romance arc or romantic tension to stay engaged
- · Those who prefer clean, simple magic systems — the spirit hierarchy is dense and not fully explained
- · Readers sensitive to possession, loss of bodily autonomy, or child abuse backstory
If you liked this
- · For fans of Naomi Novik's Uprooted — same dark Eastern-European-adjacent religious fantasy atmosphere
- · Like Venom but medieval and with a nun protagonist instead of a journalist
- · For fans of Rogerson's An Enchantment of Ravens — same lush prose, darker stakes
Which dark romantasy heroine are you? Five choices in a forest that wants you dead.
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