Hopeless Necromantic (The Catseye Chronicles, #1) by Shiloh Briar Series: The Catseye Chronicles #1
Published by Orbit on June 2, 2026
Genres: Fantasy
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Source: Orbit Books
Sticks and stones may break their bones, but he'll just resurrect them.
Four years ago, Sikras 'Catseye' Nikabod had it all: a beautiful wife, friends and family, and the endless luxuries that came with being the all-powerful necromancer to the queen.
Now, his brother-in-law is a walking corpse, he's wanted for tax evasion, his oldest friend, Vessik, has slaughtered thousands of the queen's people with a skeleton army, and his wife is dead. Sort of.
With the kingdom under threat, it's only natural for the queen to task Sikras with the totally normal, not-at-all-cruel chore of brutally murdering his dearest friend. Sure. Great. It's not like he already failed to stop Vessik's reign of terror twice or anything.
Turns out, it's hard to kill a monster when you can't stop remembering the good man he used to be. Harder still when you're pretty sure his descent into madness is kind of, sort of, hypothetically ... all your fault.
Raise a glass. Raise the dead. Just don't raise your hopes.
What a title, am I right? I knew I had to read Hopeless Necromantic. From the very first page, the novel kept surprising me. I had never considered the exact pitfalls of raising someone from the dead before, which in retrospect, seems remarkably shortsighted of me. Main character Sikras “Catseye” Nikabod, who is no stranger to horrified—er, unsatisfied—customers, has it all figured out, down to the fine print. No refunds if your dead wife is brought back with organs still spilling out, that kind of thing.
“Sure, everyone claimed they would do anything to bring back a deceased loved one, but that was because they failed to imagine the ramifications.”
If it’s not obvious, the book has a great sense of humor. I was frequently caught off guard by the things people said, did, or what unfolded in the plot. I laughed at a lot of the banter and shenanigans between characters. Unfortunately, I did have problems taking Hopeless Necromantic seriously, but more on that later.
I was immediately excited to read about a main female character who is a literal demon. I was so interested in the reversal of the classic male bodyguard protecting damsel in distress, and loved that our female protagonist, Helspira, was the one doing the protecting. It’s not too often that the most powerful magic user in the world expends all of his magical prowess on keeping his dead brother-in-law “alive” as a skeleton, but that’s exactly what Sikras does. It renders him very much less of a threat, but luckily Helspira makes up for it with her brawn and carefully-controlled demonic urges.
When readers first meet him, Sikras has become something of an eccentric hermit in his mansion. Helspira knocks on his door and says he’s wanted for the queen for tax evasion, of all things, but it’s really a ruse to make him deal with an evil sorcerer’s undead army. Unfortunately, that sorcerer is his ex-best friend, who also murdered his wife, raised her from the dead, and then made her attempt to murder Sikras. You could say he and Vessik are not on the best terms, but Sikras doesn’t want to kill his undead wife and somehow really doesn’t want to murder her murderer. There are a lot of interesting players on the board and it sort of answers the fascinating question of what happens when the famous fantasy band of heroes fall…or you know, retire to a deserted mansion until they’re wanted for tax evasion.
Besides the ingenious premise, I was really interested by all of the unique lore in Hopeless Necromantic. There’s plenty of mythical creatures, like demons and diavalos. And there’s multiple gods, sure, but shockingly, Death herself lost her scythe to Sikras in a bet and has to watch him use it as a glorified walking stick. And the title of “Catseye” is way more than just a title, by the way, but I don’t want to give too much away.
“‘I see for all your progress that you’re still a compulsive liar.’
Sikras shrugged. ‘I guess old habits don’t die as easily as my loved ones.'”
While there’s plenty of good humor and heartfelt antics, Hopeless Necromantic’s execution just didn’t work as well for me as I wanted it to. The concept has so much potential, but I ultimately struggled with both the pacing and the tone in spite of it. The story moved so quickly from one development to the next that I didn’t have much time to sit with emotional moments before the narrative had already moved on. Major emotional and interpersonal conflicts often resolved so quickly that I struggled to believe the levels of forgiveness being extended, given the gravity of what had happened. To put it in another way, character resolutions often felt at odds with the seriousness of earlier events. This left me feeling more confused and disconnected rather than moved by an emotional payoff. I also was never fully invested in the stakes because I felt so confident that things would ultimately work out. This isn’t a bad thing for people who don’t like their characters to suffer, but I like to sit in the discomfort and experience the tension building.
In the same token, I grappled with the tone of the novel. Some of the concepts had a darker emotional weight that had me very invested, such as the repercussions of necromancy and the unique and very complicated dynamics it could create between characters. But it was difficult for me to switch gears from the prevailing humorous tone to the sudden very detailed gore-heavy battle descriptions. It was as though the novel spent much of its time presenting itself as an irreverent fantasy full of humor and banter, only to suddenly pivot into graphic violence and torture. It gave me whiplash.
While I did genuinely enjoy the humor and the unique ideas in Hopeless Necromantic, I struggled with the romantic elements as well, despite romance being a major focus of the novel. Ironically, I found myself far more invested in the tragedy surrounding Sikras’s undead wife and the emotional implications of that situation than in the developing romance between Helspira and Sikras. I was so interested in the difficult questions about grief, guilt, forgiveness, and identity that the plot line introduced in those flashbacks. The idea of that scenario was so interesting to me that I almost felt as if I was thrown into the epilogue of the real story.
I can see Hopeless Necromantic working much better for readers who enjoy entertaining, fast-moving fantasy romances with a tongue-in-cheek tone and a stronger emphasis on chemistry and banter than on heavier emotional development or extensive world-building. Ultimately, though I enjoyed it, it wasn’t quite the right fit for me. This book had a lot of ingredients I normally love, but the pacing, tonal shifts, and romantic focus prevented those ingredients from coming together for me.
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I actually DNFd this. The beginning felt like we were jumping into the middle of the story, and I was completely lost. Congrats on pushing through!
Thank you, Tammy!
I got that exact feeling as well. I was very interested in everything that happened before the current events, which was rather unfortunate.