Malum Discordiae by Ashlyn Drewek

Title: ⟫ Malum Discordiae (Tennebrose #1)

Authors: ⟫ Ashlyn Drewek

Rating: ⟫ 4.5/5

Blurb: ⟫ Like all Necromancers, Cassius Corbin grew up knowing one irrevocable truth: death comes for us all. It was a lesson he learned well when his mother was murdered by fellow witches. Six years later, he is back in the town of Winslow, Massachusetts to attend Tennebrose University. But that's not the only reason. While he’s home, he intends to track down a magical folio stolen from his family centuries ago. Once he finds it, he'll finally be everything the witches in Winslow fear and the Corbin name will be respected once again — as long as Graeme Hewitt, the son of his family's arch-enemy, stays out of his way.

As the first weather witch born in a century, the witches in Winslow demand great things from Graeme Hewitt, despite his thoughts on the matter. He’s supposed to be their future, but all Graeme can think about is the past — until the infuriating Cassius Corbin returns. In spite of the blood feud that has raged for centuries between their families, Graeme finds himself in the unfortunate situation of needing Cassius’s help. Six years ago, Graeme’s little brother also died and Graeme wants the truth about what happened that day. So who better to answer his questions than the son of the woman who murdered him?

MALUM DISCORDIAE is a dark academia, paranormal MM romance about witches, Necromancers, and a blood feud that has lasted centuries. It is a stand-alone book of 117K words.  

Content Warning: This book contains references to animal cruelty, alcohol/drug use, death of children, murder, suicide, and dubious consent. Reader discretion is advised. 

Review: ⟫ This book was pretty darn good! The world building for the witches and necromancers and their history was very well done, as was the whole feud thing, and the sharp u-turn that things took so early in the book was an attention grabber. The intricacies of the different types of magic were really well handled, as was slotting the story into ‘history’ which really helped ground it in reality.

Surprising myself, I actually really liked the fact that Graeme kept going back and forth – he had spent his entire life being told one thing and it would have been unrealistic for him to suddenly believe the complete opposite just because Cassius told him so. I enjoyed the background cast of characters, and the overall feeling that no one was safe – it was a bit like watching a movie with an all unknown cast and realising that no one was too big a star to die!

I found the mystery of who the killer was intriguing, and the red herrings were really good! I did guess who was behind it all, but I actually didn’t mind that because the way the story ebbed and flowed really worked for me.

I found Cassius and Graeme both sweet, believable and incredibly snarky – like real, live teenagers which was refreshing. That, and the fact that sex was on their minds A LOT was very realistic.

I was so pleased to see that despite currently being a stand-alone novel, this was labelled as Tennebrose #1 because that hopefully means that there will be more set in this verse – I will be keeping my eyes open if that’s the case. I have found that I either love this author’s work or hate it, so I am extremely pleased to say this is definitely the same calibre as the Kidnapping of Roan Sinclair.