kimbacaffeinate
Written on Apr 30, 2018
From the first sentence, "I awoke to discover a dead man standing in my garden." I was all in. Our protagonist, Ilyse is the one who woke to find the dead man in her garden. She and her younger sister quickly returned the familiar zombie to the sacred graveyard. Oh yeah... I need to know more.
The story that unfolds was refreshingly original and exactly what I have come to expect when I read Frater's work. She fleshed out the world providing us with suspenseful threads, secrets, history and nail-biting scenes. Her ease of storytelling allowed the outside world to slip away. She gave us strong, intriguing and fleshed out characters but also allowed the settlement and its oppressive rules to speak for itself creating tension and unease. Ilyse is trying very hard to remain pious in preparation for her Bridal Auction but fears she might be calling the dead to her front yard.
If stories like the Salem Witch trials, The Forest of Hands and Teeth or Dearly, Departed excite you, then I think you'll love the world Frater has created. Magic, necromancy, oppression, fear, and zombies without gore made the story a page-turner. While I don't think this is intended to be Young Adult, the main characters are youths making it perfect for anyone.
The Unblessed Dead, first in the Hidden Necromancer series brought one suspenseful thread of this story to a close, but Ilyse's fate is very much left up in the air along with other threads. I had to wait a few weeks to get some answers, but for those picking this up today, book two, The Accused Dead, is also available. Do not read the synopsis to book two before reading book one. This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Reviewer