Ward de'Ath is a young necromancer hired to wake Celia Carlyle to say goodbye to her loved ones but the plan goes terribly awry. Celia informs Ward she's been murdered and quickly attempts escape the compound; she drags Ward along with her into the seedy underbelly of the crime world, filled with assassins, running from everybody, and dark necromancy. 
 All in all, I enjoyed this book. I found the setting was wonderful and made it really easy to get a feel for the situation the main characters were in. The writing was lovely, though during some faster paced scenes it was easy to get lost and not know how we got from point A to point B. I was very pleased with Ward's characterization, especially how he deals with his powers - it felt quite different from the typical "Here's your super special awesome power, it's the only thing that matters about you!" So his character was quite refreshing. Celia was also interesting, but I felt that she could've been rounded out a bit more. I'm sure it's partially from the type of person she is but afterwards I compared how much I knew about Ward versus Celia and she's a bit lacking that way. She's still really interesting so I look forward to perhaps seeing more of her in a sequel. 
 Overall, it was a good book. I found the first quarter took a long time to get into any real plotline. I'm just following these characters with a giant suspense carrot over my head. But after that point it opens up and becomes quite enjoyable. Definitely an author I hope to read more of in the future. 
 3.5/5