Today I get to share an excerpt from The Life of Death by Lucy Booth, be sure to check out Heidi @ This is my Bookshelf for her post.
So what is the book about?
The Life of Death by Lucy BoothPublished by Unbound on May 2 2019
Pages: 288
Amazon UK, Kobo
Goodreads
One soul. One pact with the Devil. One chance at love.
Elizabeth Murray has been condemned to burn at the stake. As she awaits her fate, a strange, handsome man visits her cell. He offers her a deal: her soul in return for immortality, but what he offers is not a normal life. To survive Elizabeth must become Death itself.
Elizabeth must ease the passing of all those who die, appearing at the point of death and using her compassion to guide them over the threshold. She accepts and, for 500 years, whirls from one death to the next, never stopping to think of the life she never lived. Until one day, everything changes. She – Death – falls in love.
Desperate to escape the terms of her deal, she summons the man who saved her. He agrees to release her on one condition: that she gives him five lives. These five lives she must take herself, each one more difficult and painful than the last.
Intrigued yet???
What has been said so far on tour?
It’s an interesting combination of paranormal urban fantasy, suspense and it’s a frank dialogue with the devil and his friend called death. Simultaneously this is a story of embracing the thought of what death is, who death is and where death takes us. It’s the acceptance of futility, of the inevitable and about looking death straight in the eye and demanding something more than it offers to you. Then finally acknowledging that even if you dance with devil in the pale moonlight, it won’t change the fact he determines what it says on your dance card.
MADEUP Book Reviews says
There are some stories that you pick up and expect something from them, with a thriller you expect there to be twists and turns to shock and stun, with comedy you expect to laugh your way through it, with fantasy you expect out of the ordinary. When starting this, I really didn’t know what to expect. The premise sounded a bit different, and held the promise of something surprising.
I wasn’t disappointed.
Cover to Cover says
I truly found this book captivating, in the most bittersweet way. The ‘will she or won’t she’ game in between her selfish motivations and the unwillingness to let go of her selfless self. There are many moments of dying and death, many moments of loved ones being taken from this life too soon or too alone. Moments of grief and the feelings of how unfair it is that another life has been lost. Moments that us, readers, have more than likely had to endure in our lifetimes and as such can bring back painful memories…
Dark Reads says
I found the whole concept of The Life Of Death really unique and interesting. We have the idea of death being portrayed by an ominous dark figure, in this book that preconception is turned on its head.
Lizzy is death but appears to the dying individual as a prominent female figure from their lives, she could appear as a mother, daughter, lover or wife who then offers comfort and peace during the final moments before they die.
A Novel of Love says
The Life of Death isn’t a Heaven vs Hell book – it’s about human choices and the feelings and emotions that influence them. It’s also a got a great theme of be careful what you wish for.
I highly recommend this for people who want something interesting and sad.
And now on to the excerpt from the book
✮ Excerpt ✮
I HAVE LIVED THE LIVES OF MORE SOULS THAN I CAN COUNT.
My husbands have loved me, scarred me, cherished me, scared me. I have outlived them all. My children have feared me, welcomed me, run to me and run away. I have caught them all.
I am there when you are born. When you cross the road. When the live wire frays in a Bakelite plug. I am there in the hospital canteen, by the frozen pond, in the carbon monoxide fug of a terraced living room. I am waiting, with open arms and solace.
I am Death.
Traditionally, in literature, art, songs, I am depicted as a man in a shabby, hooded cloak with my scythe poised to cut you down. I am to be feared, run from. But that’s not the truth, that is not my raison d’être. How are you to know the real me, after all? You only find that out in your closing seconds, when you’re searching for your final embrace, your final act of love.
At the point of death, when the physical body grunts and pants, when it seeps and oozes, when it screams and sighs, my presence brings calm. Eyes clear and wounds heal. Pain dulls and the fog lifts and in those final moments there is an undreamed-of peace. For I am there to carry you through those last moments, through the screaming and the seeping, through the fog, and deposit you softly, gently on the other side. And when you get there, with few exceptions, you are glad to see me. As you fall into the deepest and most dreamless of sleeps, and slowly, quietly, you fade to black.
As for the real me, I am fat, thin, dark, fair. I am tall. I am short. I have a plump welcoming bosom and the gnarled, age-spotted hand of an eighty-year-old. I am the woman you most want to see in those final seconds you live on this earth. I have been wives, daughters, best friends. I have been a beloved nurse, a primary school teacher. Your first love. I am the ultimate mother.
I am Death.
Liking this little snippet of the book!
Until next time xxx
Thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for the tour invite and the Publisher for an excerpt from the book.
Jules_Writes says
I quite liked that snippet of the story!
annecater says
Thanks so much for this blog tour support Zoe x
Zoé says
Thanks for having me ❤️ x