Voyage of the Damned Read Along Week 1

It’s here!!! Wyrd and Wonder 2025 has finally arrived, and I’m ready to join in on the celebration! Ariana with The Book Nook is leading this year’s readalong of The Voyage of the Damned by Frances White: a magical cruise ship murder mystery.

Wyrd and Wonder is an annual month-long fantasy celebration held every May. This year’s hosts are Imyril with There’s Always Room for One More, Lisa with Dear Geek Place, Jorie with Jorie Loves a Story, Annemieke with A Dance with Books, and Ariana with The Book Nook.

*Proceed with Caution: This post contains spoilers for chapters 1-6 of The Voyage of the Damned by Frances White*

Voyage of the Damned Week 1 Questions

1. Welcome to the United Empire of Concordia! I hope you’re settled in for the ride. What do you make of this world and the magic so far as we’ve encountered it?

It’s interesting that the world is starting out from a place of imperfect stability, which is unusual for fantasy.  Fantasy stories tend to settle into extremes: either a world is so corrupt it needs to be saved or a near perfect utopia. Concordia is neither. The land is at peace, and like any state with a stable governing system there is underlying discord and inequality between regions. It’s only when Dee and the Blessed begin their 12-day voyage that things start to fall apart. This allows the focus to zoom in on the murder-mystery plot happening on the boat, so we get a more insulated story.

I love a good epic fantasy plot, but I’m so glad more small-scale stories are being published in fantasy. Having a cruise ship murder-mystery set in a fantasy world is such a fun idea, so I’m glad The Voyage of the Damned is really focusing on that. I do think we are going to learn a lot more about the political issues in Concordia and that it will become central to the murder-mystery.

In terms of the magic system, I like that it is passed down to only one person at a time. It just adds so much more interesting layers to the Blessed’s relationships with their parents and siblings. How does it affect how many children parents choose to have (and who to have them with, in Ganymede’s case)? How to their children view their parent’s decision to have more or less potential heirs? Is there jealously between siblings? Could that jealously drive anyone to murder? I feel like the magic system is a perfect fit for a murder-mystery story.

2. Ganymedes, or Dee, is our guide on this voyage of intrigue – what are your initial thoughts about him and the precarious situation he’s in?

Ganymedes is not the most reliable narrator, which is fitting for the type of story he’s telling in The Voyage of the Damned. He is very opinionated and insecure, which affects the way he describes the other passengers to the reader. He is also very focused on his own problems (understandably) and is excluded from relationships and political discussions because of the Fish providence’s low status. I get the sense that Dee has a very surface level understanding of the relationships between the other passengers and is going to have to learn quickly to survive the voyage.

Having Dee pretend to be Blessed adds another layer of intrigue. I think this plot got a little sidelined when the murdering started, but is going to come back. First, I think the other passengers are going to discover Dee is a fraud at some point. I wouldn’t bee surprised if the other passengers demand to know each other’s blessings to see if anyone’s is linked to the murders. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Dee ends up inheriting the blessing at some point. It seems like we’ve learned through Cordelia inheriting the gift from her brother and the Dragon Blessed the blessings are not completely linear and predictable. I think Dee and his father acted out of fear too soon and could have found another way.

You might also like: Howl’s Moving Castle Read Along Week 1

3. Very quickly we have been introduced to a very varied cast of characters, and as is proper for any murder mystery, they all have their secrets… does anyone stand out to you as a particularly strong personality right away? Anyone you can see yourself rooting for or against?

I was not at all able to keep track of all the characters in the first few chapters so I made a list!

1. Eudora | Dragon (Dead): She seemed alright until she died!
2. Leafric | Tiger (No reason to suspect so far…): I feel like he is much nicer than Dee is telling us. He seems very loyal, just intimidating. My prediction is he will become a more well-rounded/likeable character as the story goes on.
3. Nergui | Spider (Under suspicion, for obvious reasons, but I do not think he is the one behind the murders only that he is up no good in other ways): Nergui was the most obviously suspicious character, which I feel like rules him out as the mastermind behind the murders because that would be too easy!
4. Cordelia | Tortoise (Under suspicion): Something about her rubs me the wrong way and it’s not just because Dee doesn’t like her!
5. Tendai | Elephant (No reason to suspect so far…): No opinion so far.
6. Shinjiro | Bunnerfly (Under suspicion): He was a little too calm after Eudora died, and I don’t think it was whatever he spiked his tea with!
7. Jasper | Ox (Adorable, has never done anything wrong in his life): He’s funny!
8. Ravinder (Ravi) | Crow (Dead): I feel like I was supposed to care about his death, but I really didn’t get to like him like Dee did. All he’s done so far is treat Dee like shit. I think there was more to his and Dee’s last conversation though, and he somehow got himself caught on the wrong side of the murderer.
9. Wyatt | Bear (No reason to suspect so far…): He’s a silly character. Not quite as funny and likeable as Jasper, but we’ll see how he turns out.
10. Eska | Ermine (No reason to suspect so far…): I feel like she is going to be more likeable than Dee suspects.
11. Yewande | Grasshopper (Adorable, has never done anything wrong in her life): Cute!
12. Ganymedes (Dee) | Fish (our storyteller!): He’s very obviously the person no one tells anything too, which makes him an interesting character to hear this story from. He’s fumbling around trying to escape his Blessed responsibilities meanwhile his best friend Ravi is caught up in some kind of shady business with the upper providences and there’s a plot to murder some or all of the Blessed. And Dee is completely in the dark!

4. It doesn’t take long for death to find its way onto the ship. What are you reactions and predictions?

Oof, I am so bad at predictions! Beware, whatever I guess, you should probably guess the opposite! So here are my predictions so far:

1. Eska will become an ally
2. Jasper will become an ally
3. Leafric will become an ally (romantic ally? I know there’s romance in this book and he’s my best guess at the romantic interest)
4. I’m going to take a wild guess that Cordelia is the murderer (and she hid the blood from murdering Ravi by going into the storm). It’s early on in the story, so I’m sure things will change, but she seems like the most likely suspect so far. My prediction is that we’ll find out she murdered her brother to inherit the blessing and then went on to kill the other Blessed on the ship.

Closing Thoughts

I’m enjoying The Voyage of the Damned a lot so far. I expected the story to have a slower start, but it gets rolling quickly. I just started the book Thursday this week and it felt like I blinked and all the sudden was 6 chapters into the book! I’m excited to see how the murder mystery plot pans out. I don’t read a lot of murder mysteries, so I’m really bad a predicting the outcomes, but I think it’s fun to try and guess who the murder is going to be.

Have you read The Voyage of the Damned by Frances White? What were your first impressions?

Check out more of my discussion posts: The Bone Shard Daughter Read Along Week 1