Fiction Reviews
Death's Daughter
(2026) S. A. Barnes, Headline, £20, hardback, 330pp, ISBN 978-1-035-44130-3
The towering literary edifice that is Terry Pratchett’s Mort looms over any attempt to personify Death but S. A. Barnes definitely steps out from under that shadow with this rich slice of crime-drama infused Romantasy. The daughter in question is Jocasta Trelane, the offspring of ‘Mors’ and a university lecturer specialising, appropriately enough, in mythology and religion. Jocasta herself is majoring in Psychology at Beecher University, just down the road from (cue dramatic music) Salem, Massachusetts. After a turbulent and, at times, quite traumatic childhood, thanks to her father’s infrequent appearances, Jo has found a safe space on the college campus, in what appears to be a magical dead zone. This is where she can keep her head down and focus on her studies while occasionally and cautiously sipping from the life force of those around her in order to satisfy her own primal hunger.
But, of course, this fragile idyll is bound to be shattered and indeed it is, first by the appearance of Devon who sparks immediate desire in anyone in his proximity. As well he might, since Devon is the spawn of Lust, another of the Old Ones and he announces to Jo that she has just been named by Death as his successor. Needless to say, this is not the career path than she would have chosen for herself but, despite her refusal to accept this inheritance, events soon force her hand as her new status attracts unwanted attention. This comes not only from other Elder spawn but also the police, as one of Jocasta’s friends is found dead under mysterious and gruesome circumstances.
As the bodies begin to stack up, Jo has to figure out what’s going on, and what Devon’s real intentions are, as well as protect those nearest and dearest to her, all the while struggling against her apparently inevitable destiny. And of course, this wouldn’t be Romantasy without a handsome love interest who turns out not to be quite who they say they are. This results in an extended and to be honest, pretty explicit, seΧ scene which together with Jo’s near-constant angst-ridden misgivings about who she is and what she wants, counter-balances the action sequences, induced as they are by one dramatic revelation after another. To be honest, I would have preferred that balance to tip a little more towards that last vertex of the Romantasy triangle but then I acknowledge that I’m almost certainly not included within the book’s target readership. And although it is a well-written, easy read, by the time I’d reached the denouement, when Jo, inevitably, squares off against her father, I couldn’t help but feel a little queasy about the underlying ‘ends-justify-the-means’ moral framework. Still, it looks as if this is the first in a series, so it’ll be interesting to see how flexible that framework is as Jo encounters other ‘Children of the Old Ones’, and grows into her role as Death’s daughter.
Steven French
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