So what...are you waiting for, exactly?
The Death-Made Prince
Lisette Marshall
Runewitch Saga, book one
ebook, 547 pages
paperback, 545 pages
Published October 21, 2025
ASIN B0FNMQSN92
ISBN 9798267847629
A runewitch on the run has only one option join forces with the sarcastic, unpleasantly gorgeous necromancer she loathes.
The man Thraga loved is dead, and her future is in shambles. When she's sentenced to the gallows for killing her lover's murderers, it's a relief more than anything… until, the night before her execution, a necromancer is thrown into her cell.
Escaping with him is her only chance to bring Lark back to life - and also the start of all her troubles.
Because her new almost-ally is not just any man returned from death. Fire mage, rogue prince, and son of the man who killed her mother, sharp-tongued Durlain Averre is everything Thraga hates. Worse, he won't revive her lover unless she joins him on a mission of his own first, using her forbidden rune magic to free his sister from the dungeons of an enemy king.
But their quest turns into a deadly chase when Thraga's violent past catches up with her. And as the net of court intrigue and old fears closes around them, she begins to find out Lark was not at all the man she thought he was…
And neither is Durlain.
The Death-Made Prince is the first book of the Runewitch Saga, an epic enemies to lovers fantasy romance featuring two morally grey leads, OCD rep, and a Norse mythology-inspired world. While it is a slow burn romance, the first book does contain spicy content intended for 18+ readers.
Nine hour countdown till Thraga's execution and it's not death she fears, it's the male the guards shove into the cell with her. Tall. Solid. And dressed like nobility.
She mentally checks for her knives—Ehwaz, Uruz, Isa, and so on—but they're long gone.
She's silent. She's still.
And then, he speaks.
And I am as invested as I'm going to get and it's only at one percent. Dayum.
Oh, look at that. Another book fell into the cart.
She's ridiculous in the love her kind of way. And he's on a mission with no time for her bullshit.
"I have a low tolerance for incompetence, and an even lower tolerance for feigned incompetence. I'm not sure why you insist on treating yourself like some damsel in distress, but it's damn inconvenient to me..."
Where's that scene for Mrs Doubtfire with the "The Whole Time" mantra because girl, wtf... But okay, she's lost her only friend. Her lover. Her ally. Her Lark. She's resigned to dying on the noose.
And why the hell we're hanging witches in a world of zombie kings-don't even get me started.
So I am one hundred percent with Durlain (dear gods, that name is painful) with the side eye on this chick because he does absolutely nothing to free her but exist and it's all she needs to break her chains and fly.
Read the bonus scene from his POV, even though it's not enough and will never be enough, and I need this whole book from his POV because this girl is much.
The constant knife recounting is one thing but it's the hours spent checking the lock on the inn door that sent me. Bless her heart. The people in her life had truly done a number on Thraga. Aranc. And Lark, too. Perhaps he even contributed the worst of it.
She's an obsessively compulsive, anxiety-ridden clusterfuck of self doubt and ignorance.
And yet, and not despite it...
Lovelovelove these two!
Deep breaths, Thraga. Grammar, Thraga. Ffs, Thraga. I savored their every interaction. Hanging on every word from Durlain's lips and holding every other breath for Thraga's response.
Just... brilliant.
The ending is nothing unforeseeable. Durlain spends the entire book warning Thraga of the doom surrounding her. Of course... that doesn't stop her from being absolutely pissed at him and feeling betrayed when it comes.
But... it was no betrayal on his part. He warned her time and time again. Not your ally. Not your friend.
"You keep seeing me as someone I'm not. Noble intentions beneath the unpleasant exterior. Saveable. Even halfway to trustworthy. Which—and I'm not sure how many times I need to keep telling you this—is a mistake."
"I care to the point not to needlessly hurt you. I don't care to the point where I will not hurt you."
and let us not glance over:
"Mount Garnot will harm you."
But Thraga is locked in on her own perceptions and despite Durlain's excessive warnings that peak with his offering of making a new plan and the downright begging of her, when that's refused, to not use her runes at Mount Garnot...
A promise she made.
A vow she betrays.
While he may have failed your self-imposed expectations, Thraga, it was you who failed yourself.
And Durlain was everything he said he'd be. Some harm. No foul.
5 out of 5 stars.
Available in ebook | hardcover | paperback
2025/55
