Saint Death's Herald - by C S E Cooney (Paperback)

About the Book

Lanie Stones is the necromancer that Death has been praying for. Heartbroken, exiled from her homeland as a traitor, Lanie Stones would rather take refuge in good books and delicate pastries than hunt a deathless abomination, but that is the duty she has chosen. The abomination in question happens to be her own great-grandfather, the powerful necromancer Irradiant Stones. Grandpa Rad has escaped from his prison and stolen a body, and is heading to the icy country of Skakhmat where he died, to finish the genocide he started. Fortunately for her, Lanie has her powerful death magic, including the power to sing the restless dead to their eternal slumber; and she has her new family by her side. Grandpa Rad may have finally met his match.

Book Synopsis

Much-anticipated follow-up to the whimsical, joyous, zombie-packed World Fantasy Award-winning Saint Death's Daughter

Lanie Stones is the necromancer that Death has been praying for.

Heartbroken, exiled from her homeland as a traitor, Lanie Stones would rather take refuge in good books and delicate pastries than hunt a deathless abomination, but that is the duty she has chosen.

The abomination in question happens to be her own great-grandfather, the powerful necromancer Irradiant Stones. Grandpa Rad has escaped from his prison and stolen a body, and is heading to the icy country of Skakhmat where he died, to finish the genocide he started. Fortunately for her, Lanie has her powerful death magic, including the power to sing the restless dead to their eternal slumber; and she has her new family by her side.

Grandpa Rad may have finally met his match.

Review Quotes

"Cooney's sophomore outing is a rip-roaring, tiger-carpet-soaring, shapeshifter-lore-ing, wizard-duel-a-warring wonder... [she] writes like a yule log on fire: warm, crackling, snapping from time to time to keep you on your toes." --Reactor

"Every character arrives in a burst: fully-realized, always finding their mark, dripping with detail and a fire in their heart." --Reactor on Saint Death's Daughter

"Grisly, dark, lovely, funny, heartfelt." --Kirkus, starred review on Saint Death's Daughter

"Morbidly effervescent, joyfully macabre, lucidly baroque, a gift of bright warmth beneath syrup and knives and a film of glittering ice." --Kathleen Jennings, author of Honeyeater

"Soaring with love and absolutely fizzing with tenderness and joy--I have never read anything so utterly alive." --Amal El-Mohtar on Saint Death's Daughter

"Wildly inventive." --Buzzfeed on Saint Death's Daughter

"You can't help but learn to love death alongside her." --Rhianna Pratchett on Saint Death's Daughter

"A compelling continuation... delightful and fulfilling." --Skiffy and Fanty

"An incredible book." --FanFiAddict

"Highly recommended to lovers of necromancers, LGBTQ+ fantasy, and tangential footnotes." --Paste

"Bold and ambitious, brilliantly black-humoured and fantastically strange. Saint Death's Herald is an ode to gods, ghosts, Death and necromancers - and getting out alive. Gruesomely gorgeous." --Angela "A.G." Slatter, award-winning author of The Crimson Road

"Effulgent, effervescent, effusively beautiful. Every superlative I can think of and then some. Cooney's Saint Death's Herald is a perfect joy of a book and I love it like I love the sun." --Cassandra Khaw, author of The Library at Hellebore

About the Author

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.