A Touch of Death

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I’m fine.

It’s only a touch of death

Nate

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A Touch of Death Synopsis

A thousand years in the future, the last of humanity live inside the walls of the totalitarian Kingdom of Cutta. The rich live in Anais, the capital city of Cutta, sheltered from the famine and disease which ravage the rest of the Kingdom. Yet riches and power only go so far, and even Anaitians can be executed. It is only by the will of the King that Nate Anteros, son of the King’s favourite, is spared from the gallows after openly dissenting. But when he’s released from prison, Nate disappears.

A stark contrast, Catherine Taenia has spent her entire life comfortable and content. The daughter of the King’s Hangman and in love with Thom, Nate’s younger brother, her life has always been easy, ordered and comfortable. That is, where it doesn’t concern Nate. His actions sullied not only his future, but theirs. And unlike Thom, Catherine has never forgiven him.

Two years pass without a word, and then one night Nate returns. But things with Nate are never simple, and when one wrong move turns their lives upside down, the only thing left to do is run where the King’s guards cannot find them – the Outlands. Those wild, untamed lands which stretch around the great walls of the Kingdom, filled with mutants and rabids.

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A Touch of Death Review

The prologue of Rebecca Crunden’s A Touch of Death is quite brutal and catches you immediately off guard. And yet, that first chapter was enough. Enough to make me immediately like the book, to make me want to keep reading and go deeper into the world. In spite of the amazing read, ultimately I would have read A Touch of Death solely for Rebecca’s writing style. However, the writing style isn’t the only good thing about this book. The characters are amazing. They are easy to connect with and easy to like!

Catherine (nicknamed Kitty by friends and family) is independent and courageous, but also has this desire to go back to the time when her life was easy and that makes a complex and interesting character. With Nate, the idea of what makes a man is torn apart and Crunden created a strong, brave man. He cries, he feels pain and shows it, he shows fear. He doesn’t have the answer and solution to every problem that comes up. That’s what makes Nate an amazing character and what makes me love him. I wish we learned more about the siblings that Nate and Kitty met because the way they all met was a bit weird, especially because Nate and Kitty trusted them so easily…

The world is also a reason to like the book. It is the common world, our world in the future as we are potentially devastated by war, with a tyrannic king coming to rise and all that comes with it. But it is quite developed through the story, with several references to its past and the mutants and that made me really curious about it. The plot has a good pace and is action-packed.. And the twist near the end of the book was amazing.

Then comes an amazing ending. An ending that pissed me off just as much as the twist, but that I can’t deny that was amazing and made me desperate to get my hands on the second book and read it as well. Overall, this book was a quite good surprise. I loved it much more than I expected and I recommend it to any urban fantasy fan.

I would like to thank Rebecca Crunden for sending me a free copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

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More Books by Rebecca Crunden

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The Outlands Pentalogy

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