Early Review--House Immortal by Devon Monk

One hundred years ago, eleven powerful ruling Houses consolidated all of the world’s resources and authority into their own grasping hands. Only one power wasn’t placed under the command of a single House: the control over the immortal galvanized....

Matilda Case isn’t like most folk. In fact, she’s unique in the world, the crowning achievement of her father’s experiments, a girl pieced together from bits. Or so she believes, until Abraham Seventh shows up at her door, stitched with life thread just like her and insisting that enemies are coming to kill them all.

Tilly is one of thirteen incredible creations known as the galvanized, stitched together beings immortal and unfathomably strong. For a century, each House has fought for control over the galvanized. Now the Houses are also tangled in a deadly struggle for dominion over death—and Tilly and her kind hold the key to unlocking eternity

The secrets that Tilly must fight to protect are hidden within the very seams of her being. And to get the secrets, her enemies are willing to tear her apart piece by piece.…

I received this book from the publishers in exchange for an honest review, I was in no way compensated for this review.


House Immortal is the first in a brand new series by Devon Monk! And it certainly has an interesting twist to it! Set in a futuristic setting in 2210, we are introduced to a new society with new social rules and governing laws dictated by the twelve ruling houses. And what's the interesting twist you ask? Why there are "Frankenstein" esque beings walking about, twelve in fact, but we're about to meet the thirteenth one.

Matilda is a galvanized, basically what everyone calls the "Frankenstein" esque beings. They are dead bodies stitched together and basically imbibed with magic/science in order to become the sentient being. I'll admit, the sciences of the matter confused me a bit, but basically, I just rolled with it! Matilda lives on her farm with her grandmother in the middle of nowhere working with her acquired hand, who happens to be a two-headed man named Neds. She still grieves for her brother who has been missing for the past three years.

Things get shaken up when another galvanized comes to her door looking for her father, her dead father. Abraham convinces Matilda to come with him back to his house because the politics are getting heated and attention will eventually turn to her and as an unclaimed galvanized, she's in danger. But we soon learn that Matilda is no ordinary galvanized and that her special abilities will make her even more of a hot commodity.

I feel like with most first in series books, we have a lot more world-building than plot development. Granted, there's still plot development, this was quite the action-packed read in fact! But we have a lot to learn about new worlds, especially ones where the time is futuristic an there's a lot of history we need to learn alongside the new rules of life. That being said, I kind of struggled with this world. Perhaps it was moreso because my last read was set in 1886 and I now jumped over three centuries into my next read, it can be kind of mind-boggling. But yet, I did enjoy this book. The characters were by far the best part! I enjoyed Matilda and Neds' antics were funny since he has two heads, he basically has two personalities, one being cynical and the other more positive. 

Matilda was an enjoyable heroine too, although sometimes her choices drove me nuts. Not in a bad way really, it just came down to the heat of the moment decisions and I sometimes wished she went in the other direction than the one she chose, but then where would our story be?

One little thing that I just got a kick out of was the drug called Shelley that is basically used against the galvanized. It was a nice hat tip to the author of Frankenstein--a book I still must read one of these days! There's definitely going to be some creature vs human issues coming up in the future as well, since the galvanized are basically servants to the leaders of the Houses.

There was a bit of romance building in this one with Matilda and Abraham. It's still too early to tell, but we definitely had some nice heated tension between them that was ever so enjoyable!

House Immortal is a wild new world created by the amazing Devon Monk where we're about to see a classic "being" in a whole new light! This is one series I will be holding onto for the foreseeable future!


Overall Rating 3.75/5 stars--an almost 4 star read, but the struggle with some worldbuilding concepts held me back, but only by a bit.


House Immortal releases September 2, 2014