We Who Will Die

The Sunday Times bestselling romantasy with tournament trials, dangerous vampires and a deadly vow of vengeance

By: Stacia Stark

Narrated by: Meg Sylvan, Troy Duran

Brought to you by Penguin.

The brand new epic romantasy series from the author of A Court This Cruel and Lovely, perfect for fans of Carissa Broadbent, Jasmine Mas, and Rebecca Yarros.

Narrated in duet style.

Life in the perilous Thorn district is a constant battle for Arvelle and her younger brothers.
Faced with an unthinkable choice, Arvelle makes a magically binding vow to do the impossible: kill the emperor, an ancient vampire created by the god Umbros.

But first, she must enter the Sundering—an arena where only the fastest, strongest, and deadliest survive long enough to be selected for the emperor’s elite guard.
As stakes rise and secrets emerge, she quickly draws the ire of the Primus, the powerful figure charged with protecting the emperor––while also finding herself depending on the enemy to hone her power ... The emporor's vampiric son.
To survive the arena and complete her mission, Arvelle must get to the bottom of a conspiracy that will change everything she thought she knew about herself—and the two vampires who are deeply entwined with her destiny…

Tropes/Themes:
1. Enemies-to-lovers
2. Forced proximity
3. Magic
4. Tournament

© Stacia Stark 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critic reviews

The start of the next great franchise . . . a bit of everything that makes the genre what it is. The perfect mix of what audiences are interested in right now

Stacia Stark delivers an absolute banger of scorching romance, gladiatorial action, and vampire power dynamics. We Who Will Die sets a blistering pace from the first chapter, delivering epic fights, twisty intrigue, and high-stakes romance. One of my top reads of the year!

Great story and great duet narration

Without any doubt you can spend your credit on this story. It's great in every way. Great narration with great story

The second half was way better than the first

Happy I pushed through the first half, it genuinely gets better. It's like the author decided to start the plot halfway through the book. A bit too many mixed mythical concepts, creatures and magic. To me, vampires seem very misplaced in the magic system, however they are "explained" by the actions of one of their gods. Don't know how to feel about that, it was a little off, but overall not a deal breaker.

It could have been shorter and it could have benefitted from less "telling". There is no real subtlety or subtext in the way characters are behaving. Everything is mostly explained away, leaving no tension to linger on.

There is a certain emotional depth to Arvelle, which I appreciated, but T was flat as a board. I genuinely like R better, even with the douchebag vibes. Not because of the bad boy situation, but because he's not so lame-ass all the time. I said what I said.

🥳 Favourite line is from R: "I lied." Right at the end. Loved it.

🤩 Also loved the narration. Both voices were really good.

Leaving 4 ⭐ rating in the context of the genre and my expectations of the book.

I don't get the hype about this book

So... The book was fine. Average romantasy, with nothing new or special, I almost DNF twice. I only finished it because there was soo much hype around this book I really wanted to know why. I am not even sure I am going to read the books after. For more than half of this book, I was bored out of my mind. Then pissed off. Then everything happened in 2 hours. Literally the best part of the book were the last 2 hours. That was it.

Not me for. Almost didn’t finish it.

Honestly, I’m not sure why I kept going. Everyone had such rave reviews for this book, I guess I wanted to love it. I just couldn’t wait for it to end. Everything felt predictable and recycled. I can see why people are talking about it, but I think it just wasn’t for me. It’s too obvious. But the main narrator did a great job! She kept me in the story enough to stick with it…. And then the voicing of the male characters would pull me right back out again. Not for me, but I see the appeal.

Don't understand the hype, DNF

I was forcing myself to listen to the book, because of all the hype, but found it very boring and unoriginal, very poor world building, FMC was annoying me, had high expectations but ended up with a huge disappointment.