Deathless Creatures
by Katie Wilson
Genre: Fantasy / Dark
ISBN: 9798989867509
Print Length: 218 pages
Reviewed by Toni Woodruff
Don’t sleep. Don’t die again. Don’t miss this.
“I died on a Tuesday.”
Sarah from Seattle was in a brutal accident. She had been standing on a sidewalk when a bus spun out of control and sent 16 people, her included, into Elliott Bay. She was the only one who survived.
Now she’s just roaming—passing the time at her bookstore job and having the same dream every night: a red tree and time zipping by—the birth and death of plants in a matter of blinks.
Nothing much changes until everything changes.
A woman approaches her at her job and talks about things she shouldn’t know: the hidden cat pendant around her neck that she got from ghosts and surviving the accident. The woman leaves Sarah with a business card: Lucy Goodspeed, Society of Keepers.
It’s these mysteries that keep unraveling that hold you breathless. The beginning of this book is just reveal after reveal about the current state of Sarah’s apparent paranormality.
Then, you add in Alex Smith. A creepily perfect dude who bares his incisors in the elevator, asking Sarah, “What are you?”
But see, that’s thething: she doesn’t know either. Her hair has gone silver; she can see, touch, and (weirdly enough) kill ghosts; and she heals just about every cut she has. That’s not a vampire. Not a werewolf. Not a human.
Deathless Creatures is Sarah’s journey of figuring out what kind of unalive person she is, what her role is in all this, and what is the deal with that creepy recurring dream. Where else could she start but with the two most suspicious individuals she’s encountered lately: the bookstore lady and the perfect-seeming Alex?
Turns out: she’s needed more than she ever could have realized.
This novel is a high-stakes paranormal puzzle. And it’s got such a deeply personal element to it. Sarah’s coming of age—or coming of never-aging—coincides with a dazzling romance featuring an astonishingly perfect romantic partner. That never happens—the guy is always bad in some way. Isn’t he?
Alex is a millionaire vampire who takes Sarah to obscenely romantic places and memorizes her favorite foods to surprise her with them later. What we know about vampires is that they can be stealthy, two-timing, and (yes) sexy. But Alex just keeps doing right by her. It becomes easy to ignore the private conversation she overhears between him and his lawyer. It’s nothing hugely damning, but it sure makes me skeptical of him. And it makes me wonder what it is he is gaining from being with Sarah. Does that means their romance can’t be this perfect? Can both things not be true?
Prose enthusiasts will be happy to know Deathless Creatures is as cool stylistically as it is plot-listically. Katie Wilson writes like a lover of good sentences. They are never in a rush but always moving. The metaphors are imagistic and smart. The dialogue is even spot-on most of the time. I left super impressed with this debut and feel grateful this thing is setting up nicely for a sequel. The world cannot be over after this, even in the hands of Sarahpocalypse.
I’m so glad I read Deathless Creatures. I haven’t been so utterly consumed by a fantasy in so long. I loved playing the cat-and-mouse game of what Sarah is and why she matters, but I’d be lying if I didn’t also mention the romance as a big part in why I was so captivated by it. Readers of various interests will be satisfied with Deathless Creatures. The mythology, the romance, the mystery, the mood—all in Seattle; it makes for one well-worthy read.
I guess what I’m trying to say is this: Say yes to this book. There’s something in it for all of us.
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