This is not a review, this is my recap for when I'm doing rereads.
My recap notes:
.Cora sees souls/ghost now and went to the mental institution and has just gotten back. From the school's pov, btwn malina going and Cora returning was a week of time. Malina is still MIA
Cora pretends she got a concussion at the football game and cant remember the last month.
She thinks she was astral projecting and that's why she was seen at school and doing vlogs as her only explanation.
Echo was in a sex relationship with malina, but didn't know malina was pretending to be someone else and just took her at face value. He thinks that norns erased her memories. He said she was training to be an evil norn. He works for Hel but isn't on her side per se, just his own side.
Raines dad's ghost appears at school briefly and only Cora sees him. Turns out he had a stroke and briefly flat lined and now is in a coma. After a couple of days he is able to return home.
On the way back from visiting Raines dad in the hospital, Cora family's car has something hit it but they don't see anyone and trees are flattened around them. Cora saw blurs of immortals fighting.
Reapers is an underground rock band from the 80s that pops up like Banksy and performs one night a month around the world.
Ingrid explains malina runed Cora 2 months ago and caused all this.
Echo says that he can't stop thinking about her and it feels different now and he never cared before but now he does.
He was born in Gaul (France) from a druid family in the Iron age and they practiced magic. Spells and everything was passed orally through verses. Roman's came and killed all the druids. Then people came from Otherworld (the other realms) and at 20 he became a valkyrie. Roman's attacked and his sisters were killed so he gathered a small army of other druid valkyries. He convinced/threatened others to join him in the fight and broke a lot of rules. They were all sentenced to eternity in Hel's service.
Now Hel's army is after Cora and he had to kill two of his old friends to stop them from taking her (They're looking for malina)
.raine explains everything to Cora. She says she has started having visions.
.grimnirs are after cora(malina) for not finishing Hel's task. Echo and torin keep having to kill some and Hel's people think it's Cora doing it. Echo is hoping the blame landing on Malina will draw her out of hiding so they can turn her in.
.Cora lets one of the souls possess her and finds out info about a bank security box the ghost wants his wife to know about. Cora goes to his family's house and the daughter, a girl Victoria from her school says she'll check it out
.Blaine the old school QB that had moved to another town has returned to play for their school. Blaine knows Echo and that he's a reaper. Blaine 's family is who andris originally lived with. Torin asked their family to come back to help out so he could protect Cora. Blaine was pissed that Andris didn't warn him about his gf dying.
. Echo thinks Raine's father's cancer was punishment from the Norns for the mother leaving. Her mom had just been summoned before the council and goddess Forsetti (justice).
.echo said his mission is to get eirick and take him to Hel and Cora was supposed to be the bait
. Blaine says he wanted Casey, his gf, to be turned but andris and torin refused. Blaine wants to not be earthbound and be summoned by eirick to azgarde.
. Torin had actually captured the grimnirs and not killed them and was trying to find out why they were after cora (to get to eirick) and they kept saying ask Echo as a trick to see proof that echo had betrayed Hel and was working with Torin. Cora explained to Torin and Raine. Torin and Andris go out to the pool and are fighting the grimnirs while raine and Cora watch from the uostsirs windows. Echo joins the guys to help. They kill the grimnirs.
.when a valkyrie or grimnir dues, their spirits are doomed to wander the earth as shades.the longer they reap, the more of their souls they lose. If they stay on earth more and interact with mortals, it nourishes their souls. They can love a mortal and let them age. If they turn them immortal, they are punished. Corpse Strand Island is the real hell of torture and where grimnirs and valkyries are punished.
.Cora still wants to help Souls. She spends a day helping a bunch of them tho it makes her physically ill
.raine says no athletes around the world are dying. They all keep miraculously living. This is why her dad is hanging on despite the stroke. She thinks norns are messing with her.
.eirick comes back to earth with his friend. He has had a lot of God training. Cora tells him she loves echo. He says he is going to go meet his parents in Hel's hall voluntarily so they will leave all his friends alone. He says he is doomed to be alone like his mother who forced Baldur to stay with her so she wouldn't be alone.
.malina and the grimnirs show up and they all fight. Malina mortally stabs Cora. Levainia says that bc of her compassion to the Souls, the Goddess gave Levainia permission to turn Cora immortal.

Note: I had previously (2023) read like 90% of the book (to chapter 16) but never finished it. So this is both my first and second read.