Bride of Death is the seventh of the Marla Mason novels by T.A. Pratt.
Finished on: 5.6.2020
[Here are my reviews of the other Marla Mason novels.]

Plot:
After the deal Marla made with Death, she returns from the underworld and her goddess status to be herself again on earth. But her divine self has left her human self with a clear mission: Do Better. And part of that doing better is hunting monsters. To find those monsters, she enlists Nicole – or rather Nicole’s head which is all that is left of her. As a chaos magician, Nicole can easily track the monsters and it’s not like Marla is leaving her any choice in the matter – although Nicole would much rather see Marla dead. They get on the road and pretty quickly, Marla is in much deeper shit than she anticipated – again.

Bride of Death focuses on Marla and shows how she’s changed. This makes Bride of Death an extra treat for fans of the series. Everybody else should start at the beginning.

Bride of Death is yet another change of pace, with Marla settling into a new life. This not only keeps the series fresh, it becomes clear how much Marla has grown over the course of it – even if she is still the same person. I wouldn’t have minded spending a little more time with Rondeau and Pelham, but then again, this is Marla’s series, so I can’t really fault it for focusing on her.

I have to admit that I was a little annoyed by Nicole – I can definitely understand Marla’s frustrations with her. But as unlikeable as I found Nicole, she is a well-crafted character and so I didn’t mind reading about her – most of the time at least. And she does have some pretty valid grievances against Marla.

The idea with the death cult was a whole lot of fun – and the dark twist that sub-subplot took towards the end left a promising opening for the next novel in the series. I am definitely here for that one, too.

Summarizing: Hugely enjoyable.