bassgirl456's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
kayleyc's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
nightmarebees's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
llikeshiscake's review
5.0
A really great high fantasy murder mystery with serial killers by the way. or a lot of the twist and turns I would also say it kind of leans a little bit into thrillers. I'm a bit sad there wasn't more romance because there was some hints of it but I also think because there's a sequel will get more of that then. I really like the idea of the needles being weapons as well as the five different gods. oh also cults . I think it gives a really great intight to how the government can take beautiful things and ruin them and talk about class poverty and some of the struggles that come with that.
Spoiler
it had a really emotional ending and I wasn't expecting De Lia to die .lyrrael's review
5.0
A fantasy city watch tries to discover the murderous artist behind the exquisite corpses appearing on city streets. Also there are death masks that gift you knowledge.
daffodilcherry's review
To try again in future maybe, plot had not yet hooked me by 91 pages, but I enjoyed the worldbuilding.
senqin's review
3.0
Does blood not solidify in the dead? Does the bile not dry up and flake away? Do the intestines not expel their contents, and all evidence of breath fade away? There are things about humans you simply cannot learn from their corpses. You must search in the living.
★★½
Fantasy + mystery + a dash of horror is usually an A+ combination for me. Sadly, this book was a bit of a letdown after what was an intriguing epigraph and an engaging introduction. The 2.5 stars are for the single POV character that I enjoyed and also for the SUPER interesting worldbuilding relating to the use of masks in the magic system.
In this world, masks are crafted after someone’s death and "enchanted" so that the wearer can temporarily possess a talent/ability belonging to the deceased person (i.e. detecting lies through body language, prodigious knowledge of medicines, uncanny sense of smell, etc). However, the masks also contain "echos" of the deceased person's life. Whenever a mask is worn, the wearer needs to suppress these strong sentiments associated with the memories of the dead in order to actually access the mask's talents, and masks with stronger powers have worse side effects associated with donning them. The Helm of Midnight follows 3 characters whose stories are tied to the theft of one of these death masks. The problem is that this particular death mask that was stolen may have belonged to a dead serial killer whoops.
The main aspect of this book that prevented me from really liking it stems from how the author chose to tell the story. First, we get Krona's POV, who is the Regulator in charge of the case of the stolen mask. Through her chapters, we experience the mystery of the reemergence of the serial killings as they are being uncovered but then immediately after we also get the POV of the serial killer as well so most of what Krona finds out the reader already knows ahead of time eliminating most of the OMG factor. Honestly, I don't know if it's the unwritten "expectation" that fantasy books have to have multiple POVs or what but I really feel like this story would have been soooo much more intense and captivating if it had just been told from Krona's singular perspective. Also, even though the masks were really cool, the rest of the worldbuilding was a bit of a mess tbh.
The characters were such a mixed bag as well. As I mentioned, Krona's POV was by far the most enjoyable for me personally and had the most vivid characters with some actual depth like Lia and Thibaut. I actually found the other two characters that get chapters, a country girl named Melanie who comes to the city to find a mask that will give her the knowledge to cure her mother's illness and Louis Charbon the serial killer himself, to be...really bad. Melanie's story was incredibly boring and even felt juvenile when compared to the darkness of the rest of the book. The author was clearly setting up Charbon to be a sympathetic and morally grey villain but honestly I just found him to be pathetic. His chapters were intriguing at first but then devolved into literally the same combination of him wallowing in his "OMG I killed a person I'm a monster but I MUST" sentiments + Fiona (literally the WORST female antagonist I've come across in a long time) making unwanted sexual advancements on him. Ugh.
The Helm of Midnight honestly had ALL the ingredients to be a winner but sadly it just ended up being a barely mediocre read.
— ♩♫♩ ~ In Memoriam