Deathbringer by Sonia Tagliareni
Deathbringer #1
Fantasy Romance
April 30, 2026 by Atria Books
ARC

Review by Angela

This seemed right up my alley, a woman who can hear the dead, but hates her magic and is determined to live a normal life and her magicless sister, who takes her place at the academy for mages and manages to fool everyone around her for years. A school for the magically gifted that is battling poachers of artifacts and investigating the deaths of several of their students and faculty. And while this is a well thought out world, with interesting worldbuilding and characters, it didn’t quite hit like I had hoped it would.

I was interested almost immediately, and kind of fell into Viola’s story and how she could hear the dead, a magic she inherited from her grandmother. She worked hard to live a normal life, while her sister attended the academy, magicless, and seemed to be acclimating well. She has a horrible relationship with her selfish mother, works at the funeral home, which enables her to use her magic by hearing the last words of the dead, but always hopes her sister would come home and they could be together again. But all of that comes to an end when her sister is murdered and she is attacked and wakes up at Gorhail Institute of Magic. Now a student, and bonded in a way to Sylas, a poison mage who hates her type of magic FOR REASONS. They must work together to find out what is going on at Gorhail, who killed Viola’s sister, and why the poachers are going after artifacts.

I think my first issue is that I just did not like either of the main characters. They were both selfish and made the stupidest choices time and again. Viola hates her magic because of her dad, who she really didn’t know, but keeps her grandmother’s library and seems to have read most of the books. Sylas just makes stupid decision after stupid decision, even after they keep backfiring on him and causes pain and death for the people around them. Yes, this is enemies to lovers and involves a bond that is forced on both of them, but I just could not see how these two would ever look beyond their own wants and personal grievances to work together, much less fall in love. I can’t tell you how many times I just sat there and shook my head while reading. These two are saved by Sylas’s sister several times and manage to scrape by in some situations by luck and intervention. Thank goodness for Lyria.

The second issue I had was pacing, the first part of this book is very slow, as the author unveils her magic system, and introduces all the main and secondary characters and some of their backstory. Which I realize is something a lot of first books do, but for some reason it stood out to me here. Things do become more interesting; I had so many suspects as to who was behind the poachers and who was the actual villain. I ended up being right about a couple of them.

I still have so many questions about this world, and the world outside of mages and their academy. This supposedly takes place in 1939, but it didn’t feel like 1939, so I’m hoping there are answers as the series goes on.

Final grade- C