Book Review: Kiss of Death by Malcom Rose

Practically every person who has sat in a history lesson anywhere in Europe knows something about the Bubonic Plague. The infamous Black Plague was the scourge of the continent for centuries. We all used to wonder how people got on with their lives with such a deadly disease spreading but I guess we don't need to question that anymore with the pandemic we're currently living through. Malcolm Rose's Kiss of Death brings the bubonic plague to the 21st century before any of us had any idea what coronavirus was after a visit to an old plague town.

The story starts with Seth on a school trip to the old plague village of Eyam, a plague village filled with the history of sacrifices people made in fear of the Black Death. Seth is moved by the story of a young couple engaged to be wed were lost to each other because one of them didn't get out of the village in time and succumbed to the illness. His friends, Kim and Wes, are more preoccupied with a wishing well filled with old money and, lo and behold, they pick up the most cursed coin disturbing the tormented ghost of one of the plague victims.

This leads to disturbing events happening to the people closest to these characters and they're kids so there's a frustration with what little they can do to fix things. Disturbing a dead soul that didn't have the most peaceful death always has its consequences. There's a simplicity in the fact that they are so young they don't want to believe they picked up a cursed object because they don't know what to do about it. Despite obvious obstacles in their way including the fact that the adults, of course, do not believe them, they manage quite well on their own in figuring out what to do.

It is a simply written book, definitely aimed at younger readers around the ages of 8-12, so the fact that these kids do handle the situation the way any kid around their age group would I think makes it feel more real, especially for the target audience reading it. It has a really great story that follows a pattern and structure you would expect it to, however, it still has a really great unexpected twist at the end that makes the story something more than it already was.

Reasons to Recommend:

• Looking for a book for a younger reader about the Bubonic Plague
• General interest in reading fiction with the Black Death at the centre of it
• An ending that fits well but you don't expect and it leaves you a little bit shaken

I would rate the book a 6.5/10. The whole black plague curse was the reason I was initially interested in it but the reason this book doesn't get a higher rating is that it's not very sophisticatedly written as it is primarily targeted at younger readers and reading it as an adult, I didn't get the same enjoyment out of it as I would have if I read it when I was around 10 years old. I do wonder what the story would have been like if it was written for an older audience, YA or older, as the main plot is absolutely fantastic and definitely adaptable. You don't even need to change the ages of the characters, maybe just the progression of the story. And many writers have proven before that you can write a book centred on young child characters without it being suitable reading for kids their age.