[Mrs.Y Reviews] Death's Kiss by by Regie Khemvisay

Book Cover via Amazon.com

For today’s review my friends, I’m going to ask that you suspend all beliefs on everyday literary classics. Today is about a romance that is akin to the love between Hinata and Naruto, or perhaps InuYasha and Kagome. I love naive but close, almost but there, detailed world-building and an intriguing story. This is a love story that encourages binge-watching episodes of “Trigun” after reading it. What book could be so manga-licious that it would be this epic? Oh, I’ll tell you all about it. Get your deck sorted, shuffle it well and be ready to drop the Ace of Hearts because she’s amazing. It’s time for a review of “Death’s Kiss” by Regie Khemvisay. Opinion I am so happy that Regie reached out to me to ask for a review of her book. She mailed it to me, and it came with some beautiful cards for bookmarks, which each have beautiful pictures of the characters that are in the story. Additionally, because I love to do this, I picked up the e-copy on Kindle which was $4.99 to also review this story in the e-book copy as well as the physical book. First impressions of “Death’s Kiss” is that it was reading like every good Manga series that I remember in my late teens and early twenties. I used to be quite the manga fanatic. I could probably bore you all with how much about Naruto lore I have happened to remember, and just what my feeling is on the geopolitical situation involving the Uchiha Clan specifically by Madara's hand was, but I won’t do that here. The reason I even mention it is that if you are not also a reader of manga and watcher of anime, this book and it’s opening sequences might ruffle your feathers. If you are a traditionalist on your romances, I beg you to have an open mind. Exposition in this book, the flashbacks, the way the characters react so abruptly to things, that’s all very much part of anime and manga formatting. Regie did something incredibly smart here, she turned a very complicated plot with very skilled worldbuilding, geopolitical conflict, bioterrorism, romance, and the conflicts of age discrimination, and made it into a novel that is such a good read. She did so well with it, by even including the drawings of her characters, that as I read along, I read it and thought of the plot like an anime. It fits the format so well. I would love to see someone draw this and bring it to the big screen, or even turn it into a series like “Big O” that has a set amount of episodes where the exposition moves slowly. Long story short, my first impressions on the story were pleased that my anime brain was stimulated. “But Mrs. Y, what if I don’t know anything about anime or manga, will I like this book?” I’m sure one or two of you must be asking yourselves this question. I can’t answer that question for everyone, but I can say that this book is chalked full of action, adventure, and well-done storytelling. The worldbuilding and the reasons for certain things are top notch. Let me allow this to move me to the parts of the review that cover the critiques I have. The first is in my “Cliche Much” portion of the scoring, and that has to do with love triangles. There are many love triangles in this story, so many you could make diamonds. Now when a love triangle is used, as long as it’s unique and presented differently, I tend to ignore it in my scoring. The issue I had with this story was the sheer amount of them because there were love triangles in the historical narrative to the back story; it became a cliche in how it was applied. Tropes are essential, some people love them, and some hate them. I am merely noting it. Let’s go into the things I loved about “Death’s Kiss.” Firstly, I think that the worldbuilding in this story needs to be commended. There are a lot of different worlds when it comes to fantasy and epic fantasy fiction, and “Death’s Kiss” lives in a very creative world. There are laws, regulations, clearly established political sections and even currency was figured out. At no time was it confusing or daunting to read about these things. When an author comes up with an easy to understand, but the very detailed world, they deserve high praise. I genuinely love a well-done world. Next, the characters were believable for the type of book it is. Again, this reads like manga or an anime so some things that the characters did for a real-life situation might seem weird. However, for an anime or manga, it’s normal and expected. No spoiler but there is a scene where a girl was jealous of her boyfriend, so she had a temper tantrum and seconds later when a reasonable explanation was given, she was immediately calm. This is a common trope used in anime and manga. You see it frequently in anime like “InuYasha” or even in “Naruto: Shippuden.” In actual life, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a woman have a temper tantrum to the level that manga women do, not in public at least. The reason I loved the character believability, is that I could relate and resonate toward the characters and their stories. Every character was unique, and I truly loved how they were moving in the story. It’s nice to be able to feel nostalgia in something new, that isn’t trying to stuff nostalgia in your face. Let’s talk about the e-copy. I loved how it read digitally, but I also like how it read in the important physical book form. There are gorgeous margins, I didn’t have any issues with the copy having any text problems, and the spot check on the book was done well. There was much love put in from the PDF to e-copy conversion, and it is glorious. This is very high praise coming from me. I take e-copies very seriously. Lastly, I loved that this was a dual narrative. The story is told from the perspective of two characters, which is not uncommon in a romance, but it is different in a tale like this. I found this was unique. I liked what it did to the overall plot moving in the story, I enjoyed the different perspectives, and I never got bored with it. For my last point, I want to talk about why I keep referring to this as manga writing when it isn't a manga. Regie calls this sci-fi/dystopian fiction with romance. I, however, have taken from it more than she let me know. She may not realize that I had this take, and I hope she understands where I’m coming from with my praise of this book. I didn’t take this as a typical sci-fi. I took away from experience, "Death's Kiss" is a well-written manga from start to end, in novel form. Moreover, let me make something very clear to any naysayers of manga or comic books influence in the literary culture. Manga is a challenging and complicated medium to write in with a meaningful hand. The thing that Regie did so well here is that unlike a manga it's not serialized into parts where you have to wait a week for the next installment. Instead, she laid it all out for a one and done setting to be read and enjoyed. To have something that fits the natural progression of such a difficult medium, and have it expressed in the novel form, to me, a master of an art. "Death's Kiss" to me is art in page form, and beautifully done, and I am giving it very high praise for the hybrid it is. You, however, may not take the book like this, but I still ask you to hear me out with my impressions of it. Score With all of the math taken into consideration, “Death’s Kiss” gets a 90/100 and that is a 5-star review on Goodreads and Amazon. You totally should pick this up if you love sci-fi, dystopian epics, or even manga. Thank you to Regie again for this beautiful story that she sent me.