Two Halves, One Brian

Book Stats

• Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) from NetGalley🖤
• Publication Date: 05/12/26
• Format: ebook
• Chapters: 52, plus 1 epilogue
• Pages: 432
• Narrator POV: Told in 1st person & alternates between the 2 main characters – Viola and Sylas

Book Rating

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Spice: 🌶️🌶️/5

Summary & Review

I was sent a NetGalley widget for this book. If you’re unfamiliar with NetGalley, it’s a site for publishers and authors to share digital Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) and/or audio Advanced Listener Copies (ALCs). Then readers and reviews like us get to search through available books and request any that sound interesting.

Occasionally, readers receive a NetGalley widget, which is sent via email and is just a pre-approved link that allows us to automatically receive the book, if we choose to accept.

This book, Deathbringer, was one of the first widgets I’ve received. I was so excited that I received the email and that it was a Romantasy (my favorite genre), so I immediately accepted the book without even reading what it was about. Some people think that’s silly, but I actually enjoy going into books blind sometimes🤷‍♀️.

ALL of that was just to say that I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I ended up loving this book. I had no idea what it was about, had never heard of the author, and wasn’t even sure if it was heavier on the fantasy or the romance.

Deathbringer is about Viola, who has the magical ability to communicate with the dead, and how those powers led to the death of her sister, Olivia. Viola heads to Gorhail University, where she plans to uncover the truth about her sister’s murder. This story also follows Sylas, another magic student who attends Gorhail, but his abilities are very different from Viola’s. In fact, he hates death magic with a passion.

Due to an expected bond forced upon Sylas, he ends up in a sort of alliance with Viola as they work together to uncover what’s happening at Gorhail and why students are being murdered.

This story has so much going on – there’s mystery, magic, family drama, a potential war, & unexpected deaths and betrayals. I love how this story was written, along with the magic the characters possess.

I actually ended up rating this one 5 stars because I was drawn in from the beginning and I wasn’t able to guess what was going to happen. I already added the physical copy to my Amazon wishlist and I hope to be able to add it to my bookshelf very soon. 😁 And the ending? Ugh, that hit hard. I did NOT expect it and now I’ll have to wait for book 2 to be written and released before I can see what’s going to happen next.

I did give this 2 chili peppers, but it’s not really spicy. More than anything, there’s a lot of tension that builds throughout the book. There’s some kissing and eventually an intimate scene, though it’s not overly descriptive. Based on our rating scale, since there’s more than kissing and/or closed door/ fade-to-black scenes, it earns 2 peppers. But again, it’s NOT spicy. If you aren’t a lover of spice, don’t let this rating hold you back from reading this work of art.