About The Book

Much-anticipated follow-up to the whimsical, joyous, zombie-packed World Fantasy Award-winning Saint Death's Daughter

Lanie Stones is the necromancer that Death has been praying for.

Heartbroken, exiled from her homeland as a traitor, Lanie Stones would rather take refuge in good books and delicate pastries than hunt a deathless abomination, but that is the duty she has chosen.

The abomination in question happens to be her own great-grandfather, the powerful necromancer Irradiant Stones. Grandpa Rad has escaped from his prison and stolen a body, and is heading to the icy country of Skakhmat where he died, to finish the genocide he started. Fortunately for her, Lanie has her powerful death magic, including the power to sing the restless dead to their eternal slumber; and she has her new family by her side.

Grandpa Rad may have finally met his match.

About The Author

C. S. E. Cooney (she/her) is a two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author: for novel Saint Death’s Daughter, and collection Bone Swans, Stories. Other work includes Saint Death’s Herald (second in the Saint Death Series), The Twice-Drowned Saint, Dark Breakers, and Desdemona and the Deep. As a voice actor and proud member of SAG-AFTRA, Cooney has narrated over 130 audiobooks, as well as short fiction for podcasts like Uncanny Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Tales to Terrify, and Podcastle. In March 2023, she produced her collaborative sci-fi musical, Ballads from a Distant Star, at New York City’s Arts on Site. (Find her music at Bandcamp under Brimstone Rhine.) With her husband, writer and game-designer Carlos Hernandez, she co-designed a GM-less TTRPG called, Negocios Infernales (“the Spanish Inquisition… INTERRUPTED by aliens!”), out now from Outland Entertainment, with the companion collection Infernal Bargains, poetry and prose inspired by the game’s “Deck of Destiny.” Find her website and Substack newsletter via her Linktree or try “csecooney” on various social media platforms.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Solaris (April 22, 2025)
  • Length: 432 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781837864492

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Raves and Reviews

“Grisly, dark, lovely, funny, heartfelt.” Kirkus, starred review on Saint Death’s Daughter

“Every character arrives in a burst: fully-realized, always finding their mark, dripping with detail and a fire in their heart.” Reactor on Saint Death’s Daughter

“Wildly inventive.” —Buzzfeed on Saint Death’s Daughter

“You can’t help but learn to love death alongside her.” —Rhianna Pratchett on Saint Death’s Daughter

“Soaring with love and absolutely fizzing with tenderness and joy—I have never read anything so utterly alive.” —Amal El-Mohtar on Saint Death’s Daughter

“Effulgent, effervescent, effusively beautiful. Every superlative I can think of and then some. Cooney’s Saint Death’s Herald is a perfect joy of a book and I love it like I love the sun.” —Cassandra Khaw, author of The Library at Hellebore

“Bold and ambitious, brilliantly black-humoured and fantastically strange. Saint Death’s Herald is an ode to gods, ghosts, Death and necromancers – and getting out alive. Gruesomely gorgeous.” —Angela “A.G.” Slatter, award-winning author of The Crimson Road

“An incredible book.” —FanFiAddict

“Highly recommended to lovers of necromancers, LGBTQ+ fantasy, and tangential footnotes.” Paste

“Morbidly effervescent, joyfully macabre, lucidly baroque, a gift of bright warmth beneath syrup and knives and a film of glittering ice.” —Kathleen Jennings, author of Honeyeater

“A compelling continuation… delightful and fulfilling.” —Skiffy and Fanty

“Cooney’s sophomore outing is a rip-roaring, tiger-carpet-soaring, shapeshifter-lore-ing, wizard-duel-a-warring wonder… [she] writes like a yule log on fire: warm, crackling, snapping from time to time to keep you on your toes.” Reactor

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