Saint Death's Daughter: 2023 World Fantasy Award Winner! C. S. E. Cooney 9781786188526

WINNER OF THE 2023 WORLD FANTASY AWAY FOR BEST NOVEL

Nothing complicates life like Death.

Lanie Stones, the daughter of crown-appointed killers, was born with a gift for necromancy-and a literal allergy to violence. For her own safety, she was raised in isolation in a crumbling mansion by the family's mouldering revenant.

When Lanie's parents are murdered, she and her psychotic sister Nita must settle their extensive debts or lose their ancestral home. When Liriat's ruler, too, is murdered, it throws the whole nation's future into doubt.

Hunted by Liriat's enemies, terrorised by family ghosts and tortured by a forbidden love for a childhood friend, Lanie will need more than luck to get through the next few months-but when the goddess of Death is on your side, anything is possible.

C. S. E. Cooney is the author of World Fantasy Award-winning Bone Swans: Stories. Her short novel The Twice-Drowned Saint is included in Mythic Delirium's anthology The Sinister Quartet. Other work includes Tor.com novella Desdemona and the Deep, and a poetry collection: How to Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes, which features her Rhysling Award-winning "The Sea King's Second Bride." Her short fiction and poetry can be found in Jonathan Strahan's anthology Dragons, Ellen Datlow's Mad Hatters and March Hares: All-New Stories from the World of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Rich Horton's Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, and elsewhere.

"Wildly inventive."-Buzzfeed

"Cooney's prose is beautiful and intricate and glowing."-The Colorado Sun

"Every character arrives in a burst: fully-realized, always finding their mark, dripping with detail and a fire in their heart."-Tor.com

"Saint Death's Daughter exemplifies what fantasy can do in the best of ways."-Strange Horizons

"Grisly, dark, lovely, funny, heartfelt."-Kirkus, starred review

"I can usually predict story beats long before they happen but the author managed to surprise me with the depth and complexity of the characters, especially the antagonists." -- The Southern Bookseller Review

"Strange and magical adventures in a colorful world where most people are gender fluid, the gods are strange and death is not an ending." -- Thornwell Books

"This is the weirdest book I have read in a long time - and yet it's weirdness is charming. Somewhat reminiscent of What We Do in the Shadows or The Addams Family." -- Booknest

"The novel complicates and recomplicates, always to its benefit. There's a puppy! And there is suspense, and twists, and a satisfying resolution that gives no one all they want." -- Black Gate

"I don't want to tell you much about this book. I want you to experience it the way I did; a cake whose every layer is more delicious than the last; a gemstone that always has another glittering facet when you turn it over in your hands; a gift that never stops giving. This is a book you should go into unprepared - and unarmed." -- Every Book a Doorway

"The broad aesthetic here is 'whimsical gothic': early chapters have a real Ghormengast-y vibe, which Cooney balances with a story that builds increasing nuance. Saint Death's Daughter has gone straight to the favourites list, and I can't wait to see where the adventures of Lanie take her." -- Nerds of a Feather

"A beautiful, stunning work of literature, more art than words, and something that I recommend everyone reads." -- Just Geeking By

"Lanie's journey from a young woman to adulthood is compelling; the rise of her necromantic power and how she learns to wield it is enthralling. The world the author has built around Lanie is intricate and beautifully realised. It is a story that rewards the time invested in it." -- British Fantasy Society

"I've never met a book that is so completely sure of itself. Cooney could have gone off on any tangent and I would have completely believed it. I loved Saint Death's Daughter for its complexities and characters and chaos and I think this will remain one of my top reads of the year." -- FanFiAddict