This Fatal Kiss by Alicia Jasinska

Title: This Fatal Kiss

Author: Alicia Jasinska

Genre: Fantasy

Publisher: Walker Books

Published: 1^st August 2025

Format: Paperback

Pages: 416

Price: $22.99

Synopsis: An immersive fantasy, filled with dark magic, mystery and romance, from the author of The Dark Tide.

Cursed to haunt the river running through the magical spa town where she drowned, water nymph Gisela dreams of returning to the living world and the family she left behind. All it takes to regain her humanity is a kiss from a mortal … if only others didn’t see her as monster.

Kazik, the brooding, interfering, spirit-hunting grandson of a local witch is determined to rid the world of unholy creatures like Gisela, but his plans go awry. Gisela strikes up a deal: she won’t tell the other spirits that he’s losing his magic, if he agrees to play matchmaker. But trouble arises when both she and Kazik set their sights on the same, devilishly handsome, young man …

Expertly crafted, this hauntingly opulent quest through the spirit world is a slow burn enemies-to-lovers story told in multiple perspectives.

~*~

This Fatal Kiss and its dark magic themes revolve around Slavic folklore, and explore demons, death, and myths around life and death. Gisela was drowned a year ago, and is cursed to haunt the river in a magical spa town. She’s been transformed into a water nymph following her untimely and violent death. But unlike the other water nymphs who live with the water goblin, she longs to become a human again and return to her family.

But to do so – she needs to get a mortal to kiss her. She has her eyes on Aleksey, but needs the witch and exorcist, Kazik to help her. Little does she know that Kazik also has his eyes on Aleksey, and that Aleksey is hiding a secret of his own. Gisela agrees to keep Kazik’s secret if he helps her: she won’t tell the spirits his magic is dwindling if he gets her that kiss…

This Fatal Kiss is a dark fantasy based on Slavic folklore, where spirits, demons and other beings prowl the villages and emerge on certain days and nights to hunt or take trinkets that the humans leave. Gisela, Kazik, and Aleksey’s voices tell the story, which seamlessly moves between the three, and allows the magical world to unfold slowly. It also touches on some darker subjects around death, suicidal ideation, murder, abuse and various forms of violence that the author warns about in a note prior to the story. Doing so informs readers of what they could encounter, even in subtler ways that could impact a reader in anyway. All it did for me was alert me that I would come across these things at some stage. It didn’t spoil anything for me, and I think allowed me to prepare myself for what I could encounter.

There were joyful things amidst the darkness in this book. The playfulness of the water nymphs gave them a touch of humanity and was a stark contrast to how Kazik and his family see them. It allows the characters to explore the nuances of each other and their worlds. To understand that sometimes, what someone looks like, what someone appears as, is not always what they appear to be for everyone. At times though, it delves into the darkness of the world its in and the motives of some characters. The romance is subtle, which I think works well. It allows the true motives to be properly explored, and for the characters to have more going on than will they-won’t they. This makes it more powerful, as the characters and relationships have layers that give the novel something unique that makes the story flow well. And where it means every reader will find what they like in this book and get something out of it that means something to them.

This was an interesting book that explored a different mythology and range of legends that are lesser known than other culture’s tales. Every culture has their own versions of these legends as well. It was refreshing to see different tales, legends and monsters explored. It is richly rendered and showcases how different people react to different circumstances as well.