Book: Deathbringer by Sonia Tagliareni
Reviewed by Weird | weird.reads.books
Rating: 3/5
Deathbringer is the kind of dark academia romantasy that smells like old stone, candle smoke, and peppered generously with forbidden romance. We’re dropped into Gorhail Institute of Magic alongside Viola, a death mage who can speak with the dead, despises her gift, and only attends to find answers about her sister’s death. The place is already primed to chew her up and spit her out upon her arrival.
Enter Sylas: an immortal poison mage powered by three magical snakes, carrying his own grief and grudges, and absolutely not interested in getting close to a death mage… until fate basically shoves them together with a magical bond and a growing stack of bodies. Mages start turning up dead, and Viola and Sylas end up in an uneasy alliance to find out who’s hunting mages for their magical relics before Viola becomes next on the list.
The vibes of this book are fantastic. Gorhail feels properly eerie, like the school itself is listening. The necromancy angle is nasty in the best way, and the murder-mystery thread kept me turning pages because I needed to know what the hell was happening. Viola’s grief has weight, and Sylas’s whole “reckless, haunted, trying-not-to-care (fails immediately)” energy is very readable.
The book took on a few heavy-hitting that made the pacing feel lopsided. There are stretches where it feels like we’re speed-running information (names, rules, houses, motives) and I had to pause and mentally pin things to a corkboard. And while I liked Viola and Sylas together, the relationship progression occasionally felt like it was hitting milestones on a deadline instead of breathing naturally. There were also many moments where characters went on the same reaction loop for each revelation, which got old pretty fast.
Overall, this was a solid start with a delicious premise, strong atmosphere, and enough intrigue to keep me invested. If you like dark academia with necromancy, romance, and a body count that keeps the stakes spicy, it’s worth stepping into Gorhail.