Blurb
Love kills.
Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, unleashed a life-changing apocalypse that reshaped the world and cursed humankind with immortality. Now injury, old age, and death mean nothing. Until the Soul connects with its Twin. Once true Love is found, immortality is lost.
The Priestesses of Aphrodite exist to hunt down and send those blessed souls to Aphrodite’s Golden Palace in the afterlife. They are devout and efficient… if only a little blinded by the lustre of gold and the taste of blood.
Carys Epistro’phia, an infamous Priestess, will go to great lengths to put her hands on a chest with fifty thousand gold coins. Including turning a blind eye to Twin Souls who rule over an isolated island and are willing to hire her unique skills to bring their daughter back home. Princess Ishana, a fragile and naive girl who has never died before, is Carys’ key to the treasure… as long as she arrives home with her soul intact.
But in this sacrilegious contract, not everything is as it seems, and sometimes the heart has its own schemes.
Content warnings: gore, murder, suffocation, torture, mutilation of corpses, infant death (non-descriptive), physical/psychological abuse, cutting of limbs, talk of suicide, self-harm, alcoholism, explicit sex scene.
The book cover below includes alt-text.
Impressions
This story was intense and gory, set in a dark, grim, unforgiving world.
The main characters were very flawed, and not really good people, which made them perfect for each other. However, they had just enough sympathetic features and an engaging story, plus good chemistry, which made following them an exciting adventure. At the same time, they did a lot of unsavory things, some of which were physically unpleasant to read about (see content warnings above).
I loved how the author subverted some tropes and executed some truly unexpected plot twists. The world and the story itself seemed very original and fresh to me.
There were things and terms/roles I didn’t understand because they were never explained, which made reading frustrating at times. I don’t know if I should have known more Greek mythology to understand them, or if there was another reason, but I believe the story would have benefited from a few explanations.
Despite those bumps and the fact that I’m not really into grim narratives lately, I was engaged in the story and ended up enjoying it and rooting for the characters, as well as their weird, twisted love.
You might enjoy the book if you like grim, gory worlds, sapphic romances between flawed characters, Greek mythology and original worlds.
You can get This Is How Immortals Die at Amazon, Kobo, Barnes&Noble, Apple, itch.io and other bookstores.
The author
Nicole Hidalgo is a self-published writer and game developer who loves fantasy and sapphic romance. Check out her website, BlueSky and Mastodon.
Featured image by NonArtist.