3 stars. There’s something interesting here. But it didn’t catch me.
In Death’s Mantle, our main character, Lucian, defeats the Grim Reaper when he comes to pay him a visit. In return, the Grim Reaper decides to make Lucian his replacement. OK, a bit of a strange premise, but I guess we needed to set up a situation where there’s a brand new Grim Reaper somehow.
In this world, the role of Death is to kill the parasites feeding off of humans (and keeping them alive beyond their death date). So if someone has cancer, but lives long past when doctor’s expect them to, Death comes along and kills the parasite which allows the cancer to finally do its job and kill the patient.
Understandable, Lucian sees this as a bad thing. Why not let the parasite live which prolongs the life of the cancer patient? Well, buddy, they don’t call you the Grim Reaper for nothing. Yes, what you do shortens lives.
Also understandable, but Death has a few enemies. There are angels, fallen angels, and injuresouls. Lots of things are trying to stop Death.
Things I liked about the book series:
- The MC has lots of enemies, making his job difficult
- The MC has complex motivations, including personal motivations around his family
- The book explores complex topics like mental health and disease from the perspective of Death
- The book explores complex topics like the motivations of good and evil being not all good or all bad
Things that took away from it:
- The MC cannot be very powerful compared to creatures that have lived 800 years, yet he seems to be able to stand up to them
- I don’t like any of the characters
Untimately, I will not be continuing with this series. It didn’t hook me. I don’t have a strong desire to see the “Old Death” succeed, or Lucian succeed, or him develop a relationship with Danira, or any of the side characters. In some books, I just want the MC to win. Not so in this book.
