We Who Will Die by Stacia Stark
WOWOWOWOWOW.
Please hold while I stand up and clap dramatically in my living room.
Stacia Stark has done it again. If Kingdom of Lies carved a permanent mark into your reader soul, We Who Will Die hums in that exact same frequency. Dark. Intense. Brutal. Emotional. Laced with longing and blood and impossible choices. This book did not let me rest. It grabbed me by the throat and said, “You’re mine now,” and I said yes immediately.
This story is massive in scope and intimate in pain. We get a sprawling empire, whispers of an even larger world, and layers upon layers of magic and politics. There are magic wielders and mundanes. Vampires with agendas. Creatures roaming the edges of myth like griffons, centaurs, kelpies, and wyverns. The world feels lived in, ancient, and dangerous in a way that makes you want to keep turning pages just to see what horrors and wonders live around the next corner.
At the heart of it all is Arvelle. A survivor in the truest sense. An addict mother. No father. Two younger brothers she would burn the world down for. She spends years holding everything together with grit, rage, and love. So when a vampire appears with a bargain that could save her injured brother, she does what she has always done. She sacrifices herself.
That bargain binds her to the impossible task of assassinating the emperor. Yes, that emperor. Ancient. Cruel. Untouchable. And to get close enough to kill him, Arvelle must enter another deadly arena and fight her way into the emperor’s elite guard.
And then the universe twists the knife.
The Primus. The emperor’s enforcer. The man determined to push her out of the competition. The man who knows exactly how to get under her skin. He is not who she expects. At all.
Add in the emperor’s son Rorrik, who is equal parts menace, mystery, and moral disaster, and suddenly we are deep in a triangle of tension, blurred loyalties, and dangerous attraction. Rorrik is a walking contradiction. Bad. Good. Bad again. A character I hated, understood, questioned, and obsessed over in rapid succession. He is not the villain he pretends to be, and every scene with him crackles with something unspoken and sharp.
This book thrives on shared histories and forgotten ones. On emotional scars that refuse to stay buried. Every character is carrying something heavy, and watching those wounds slowly surface is both devastating and beautiful. Tiernon’s loyalty is feral and absolute. Arvelle’s strength is raw, earned, and evolving. She learns that survival does not always mean standing alone, and that realization hits hard.
The pacing is electric. The battles are brutal. The political intrigue simmers constantly under the surface. And the ending? A cliffhanger that left me staring at the page like it personally betrayed me. Bound to the dark and dangerous brother, with the world tilting on its axis, I am beyond ready for book two.
This book has serious top read of the year energy. The kind of book you cannot shut up about. The kind you explain badly but passionately to your non reader husband until he regrets asking what you are reading. I was hooked from the first page, obsessed by the last, and already counting the days until the sequel.
Stacia Stark, consider this my formal, enthusiastic, slightly unhinged standing ovation.
xoxo
