Review: Ward against Death

Plot: Twenty-year-old Ward de’Ath expected this to be a simple job—bring a nobleman’s daughter back from the dead for fifteen minutes, let her family say good-bye, and launch his fledgling career as a necromancer. Goddess knows he can’t be a surgeon—the Quayestri already branded him a criminal for trying—so bringing people back from the dead it is.

But when Ward wakes the beautiful Celia Carlyle, he gets more than he bargained for. Insistent that she’s been murdered, Celia begs Ward to keep her alive and help her find justice. By the time she drags him out her bedroom window and into the sewers, Ward can’t bring himself to break his damned physician’s Oath and desert her.

However, nothing is as it seems—including Celia. One second, she’s treating Ward like sewage, the next she’s kissing him. And for a nobleman’s daughter, she sure has a lot of enemies. If he could just convince his heart to give up on the infuriating beauty, he might get out of this alive…(Summary from goodreads.com)

Cover: I like the cover a lot because it gives that haunted almost Gothic feel. The only bad thing is that now I have a picture of the main characters and don't get to make them up on my own.

My opinion: This novel took me a lot longer than usual to read and not because of the writing or the plot, but because of its format. I don’t have an e-reader only my computer (which is not a laptop) so I couldn’t bring the book to my usual favourite reading spaces: a train/bus on my way somewhere, the bathroom or my bed. Thus it took me forever to finish it, because otherwise I read a chapter here and there in before said places. Now I couldn’t so it made my reading a bit more irregular, which wasn't good for the reading experience.

When I received this e-ARC from the publisher (thanks a lot!), I had no idea what to expect and sometimes that can be a good things. Many a books have disappointed me in the past because my expectations were sat too high. Although I didn’t have any real expectations for this novel, it still somehow exceeded them. I was immediately drawn in by the first chapter with Ward performing his necromancy on the nobleman’s daughter Ceila, who doesn’t even realises she’s dead. Many are the mythological creatures who recently have found themselves appearing in numerous books lately but a necromancer, well.. that’s a first for me anyway.

As for the characters, they are quite enjoyable. Celia is a kick-ass protagonist. Though a murdered nobleman’s daughter brought back to life, she is in no need for a man to save her. She proves that more than once killing off enemies by throwing daggers through their throats. Now that’s some real sass. Ward on the other hand, too likable, is a quiet rather shy and upright necromancer/physician who never dreamed of stumbling into something like this. As always I like it when the story is told from both protagonists’ POVs, as is the case with this novel. The part that I am a bit disappointed in was the romance aspect. The summary made me expect more of this, which makes this "just" a good read instead of a great one.

All in all, there wasn’t a slow minute in this debut and I enjoyed Ward against Death a lot. I think you should give it a shot.

Release date: 2nd of August 2011.