I have never been so destroyed by a book. Loved it from start to finish. The first time I read it, it took me less than 48 hours. It had everything I was looking for in a book! Unique characters, twisty plot, necromancy, lesbians, spacey sci-fi, mysterious backstories, excellent worldbuilding, tonnes of foreshadowing...the list goes on. And I do love foreshadowing in particular. It's been such a treat to re-read and pick up all the clues that I didn't notice the first time.

I loved how the necromancy-based magic system took shape. The author clearly did a lot of research on the subject. This book is mostly fantasy/mystery but there's some sci-fi that will be expanded on later in the series.
The humour won't be for everyone but it was perfect for me. I can tell where the influences are. I rarely genuinely laugh out loud when reading but this book had me shrieking.

Gideon and Harrow are characters that will probably ruin all other characters for me forever. Many of the side characters were pretty lovable as well. There are a lot of them, but there's a dramatis personae in the front and they're all different enough that I wasn't lost. I will say that there could have been a little more development of Gideon and Harrow's relationship before a certain scene, but this didn't bother me enough to knock a star off.

Even the worldbuilding is just so perfect for what I'm looking for - a unique blend of fantasy, mystery and sci-fi. The writing can get incredibly dense and detailed, but it helped me visualise what was happening (which I struggle with fairly often). The lore is specific enough in places to get me interested in this universe as a whole, while also creating mysteries that I'm just dying to solve.

It's only five days away but the wait for Harrow the Ninth is killing me. I've read the snippet of Act 1 three times already. Honestly don't remember the last time I was this excited for anything! I even took two days off work to read it. I'm 100000% sure it will destroy me too.