Heartbreakingly beautiful story surrounding Folklore and Legends | A Review of The Bride of Death written by F.M. Aden

A review of The bride of death by Quills and Pages

***This is a review of an ARC sample from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review***

The Bride of Death is written by F.M. Aden. I thank Netgalley and the author for letting me read this arc. This is beautifully written, incorporating various legends, myths, and folktales. The story takes place in a faraway village in Turkey I guess because a lot of terms used in the book are Turkish. The main legend of the story is Erlik Khan. I am going to do another blog post about this myth. It's a mythical figure in Turkic Mythology referred to as the Lord of the Underworld. Anyway, this book surrounds his legend and a girl from a small village who had a magic of light. This girl named Zerryn captures the eye of Erlik Khan and he kind of blackmails her to participate in three extremely difficult trials or tasks for his hand in marriage. Yes...he manipulated her like that.....even she hated him.

GENRE
Mythical, Folklore, Fantasy
THEME AND TONE
The book was written very beautifully. The author is an amazing writer.
LANGUAGE AND WRITING STYLE
Easy to read
CHARACTERS

Morally Grey characters

TROPES

☙ Mythical, Folklore, legends
☙ Dark and light magic

☙ Beauty and the Beast vibe

☙ Hades and Persephone vibe

☙ 3 trials for FMC

☙ Vampires and other lethal creatures.

☙ Heartbreakingly Beautiful story but a happy ending

MY REVIEW

This book has a similar tale-telling vibe to The Bear and the Nightingale. It was so magical right from the start. a girl living in a small cottage near the first. the village used to call her "beautiful but strange". She is the type of girl who spends most of her time in her head. Her mother died when she was a babe and her nanny Derya brought her up. She died also when Zerryn was a little older and then she was sent to live with her grandmother from her mother's side.

She had a good childhood but it was filled with so much death. A little before Derya dies something happens to her and her one eye loses its color and becomes dark...dark like death and night. That's when she started to see things. Things from other dimensions that no one can see. She also starts experiencing strange nightmares about people dying, and a few days later, that person really dies. and due to her the village people usually stay as far away from her as possible. they thought that she was cursed by Erlik Khan; who is a big bad legendary lord of the underworld.

So, this is the crux of the story. It's basically a love story of Zerryn and Erlik Khan. And it's so beautiful filled with trials, enmity, heartbreaks, betrayal, and death. I was sad for Zerryn because of her mother and then her father and then people turning against her calling her demoness and other stuff. But it also has a happy ending so I am satisfied with that. At least she got her happy ending. This book is one of the best of Netgalley I read.