Review: Immortal Consequences (The Souls of Blackwood Academy #1)

Immortal Consequences, Book 1 in The Souls of Blackwood Academy Duology by IV Marie

Published By: Electric Monkey
Publication Date: July 29, 2025
Date Read: April 7, 2026
Genre: YA – Fantasy / Romantasy
Source: Bought
Format: Audiobook
Pages: 464

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Welcome to Blackwood Academy: a boarding school located on the fringes of the afterlife.

No one knows why they end up at Blackwood; but when they enter the school’s arched gates the only way out is to be chosen for the Decennial – a series of magical trials held once a decade. The chosen pupil is offered a choice: graduate and join Blackwood’s magical elite, or venture into the unknown and cross over to the Other Side.

Wren knows she has what it takes to win—unless, that is, her arch-rival (and subject of her tortured dreams) Augustine steals her spot.

Irene has never cared about playing by the rules and will break whatever (and whoever) stands in her way, including her only friend, Masika.

Olivier has given up securing the nomination. But he’ll stop at nothing to keep Emilio, from crossing over to the Other Side.

All are determined to be Blackwood’s chosen candidate. All are determined to win. But this Decennial will be unlike any before.

Six nominees.

Four trials.

One victor.

The competitors are about to learn that there are some fates worse than death.

Immortal Consequences is a book that I have seen quite a lot over the online book community over the past year. It’s one that I was interested in but didn’t actually pick it up until it was recommended to me for my ‘Read 12 Books Recommended by 12 Friends’ challenge. After looking into it a bit more, I decided to give it a go as I felt like the premise of this book was so good, and had so much potential.. and it did. Oh, Immortal Consequences… I wanted to love you so much. I had such high hopes for this book but unfortunately it all just fell a little bit flat for me.

Immortal Consequences follows six teens who find themselves having lost their lives too early. After their deaths they find themselves at Blackwood Academy, a school situated in the in-between where the students learn to harness magic, and help to reap souls. They are training for a competition that if they win they will get to live with magic indefinitely. If they don’t win, they will have to cross over to the afterlife… if there even is one.

I honestly thought the premise of this book was fantastic. It sounded like everything I should love in a book. Magic and competition/trials? Those are things I absolutely love in my books. But I don’t know,.. something just didn’t hit for me. I had such high hopes for this one but I felt like I just didn’t connect to a single character. I just felt like there was too many ‘main’ characters. Even now, having finished this book, I couldn’t tell you all of the main characters names without looking them up. They were just so… forgettable to me.

I do think my issue with this book was the fact that there were six perspectives. It was too many, and it ended up being detrimental to the storytelling. I understand that there were six people in the competition and the trials, but I don’t feel like we needed to see the point of view of all of them. I feel like two of the characters, were very clearly the ‘main’ characters and unfortunately by there being six points of view, they all just sort of merged into one ‘muddy’ voice. At first, I wondered whether my issue of feeling like there were too many points of view was because I was listening to the audiobook. Maybe it was, but to give props to those who created the audiobook, there was a separate narrator for each character and I do think they did a good job with the material. It wasn’t the narrators really, it was just the fact that all of the female characters felt exactly the same and all of the male characters felt exactly the same. Discounting the fact that it was a different voice physically, I couldn’t tell which character was which. They just blurred together and I felt like none of them were very well developed. I couldn’t keep them all straight in my head, and after a while I just stopped trying.

If I’m being completely honest, I almost DNF’d this book… and I NEVER DNF audiobooks. I always stick audiobooks out as it’s easier to push through with them. Not counting my issues with the POVs and the characters, I grew very bored throughout the majority of the book. It just wasn’t going anywhere and was dragging on for me. I kept seeing online how the book got better at 75% and it did (but why are we waiting for 75% through for a book to get good?)! The ending was exciting and intriguing. It was almost enough to make me consider reading book 2!

Immortal Consequences was unfortunately my biggest disappointment of 2026 so far. I wanted to love this one so much. It really did have so much potential but for me the execution just was not up the scratch. It was a big, ambitious plotline with big, ambitious characters and unfortunately the author just didn’t pull it off, in my opinion. I will not be picking up the next book in this duology but I will still keep an eye out for what IV Marie writes next. If there’s not quite as many POVs, I may give it a go. If you’re a big lover of Dark Academia and having lots of characters POVs is not an issue for you, then you may still like this one but for me, it was a bit of a miss.