I don’t even know where to start.

Let’s start with the purpose of the book. Kalyazin and Tranavia are at war and have been for over a century. They are at war because one country believes the gods should control all magic and gift it when they see fit (those gifted are called clerics) and Tranavia believes that since they have blood magic, they don’t need the gods and shouldn’t have to devote their whole lives to them. So they are at war. Why? I honestly don’t know. Not sure why they couldn’t just be two separate countries who do things differently. Kalyazin seems a little more hysterical about the whole thing, believing everyone else has to be the way they are in regards to religion. Oh and there is a flippant comment about “a piece of land.” So is this talking about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict? The Crusades? Who knows because the war is not fleshed out at all and all we are told is power is all that matters. The real purpose of the war is never actually talked about. Honestly our two main characters are tired of war. It's been going on forever. Both admit many don't eve know why they're fighting anymore. It makes no sense but here we are.

Nadya is a cleric from Kalyazin. She is the only cleric. She is a special cleric. How do we know this? Because we are told. Repeatedly. She is the only one EVER to be able to talk to all the gods and use all their powers and she is Very Special, okay? So special she is raised in a monastery and everyone is willing to die for her because she’s the only cleric and that is important. She is also an orphan, which I assume will be important. She’s Joan of Arc. Or Jesus. Or something of that ilk.

Immediately Tranavia invades and she is scared of the High Prince, who is a powerful blood mage and apparently soulless and she just can’t fight him. This High Prince is Serefin, who is our other point of view. He is completely useless and not at all as scary and badass and we are lead to believe. He would be 100% dead without his two best friends. Believe it.

NONE OF THIS MATTERS. What matters is Malachiasz, whom Nadya meets after escaping Serefin and it quickly becomes evident that she is the POV only so he remains mysterious and complex and can come across as a romantic leading man. This is his story through and through. Everything else is window dressing. How do I know this? Nadya has no other significant conversations, thoughts, or feelings. Every single choice she makes is from his machinations. As a reader you become more invested in what his next move is than Nadya’s and her chapters where she is not in constant interaction with him are boring.

Everything with Serefin is pretty boring unless he’s hanging out with his mom’s crazy witch friend. I thought we would need him in order to have some sort of political story to counteract Nadya’s magical story but he doesn’t have a political plot. In fact he has nearly no plot. He’s a prince who is sad his daddy doesn’t love him and it takes him way longer than it should to figure out that the whole come-home-so-you-can-get-married thing was all a ruse. I suppose we are to forgive him because he is a prince and pretty. But, like Nadya, he is a feint to distract from the fact that this is Malachiasz’s story. Because Malachiasz is special too. Probably even more special than Nadya, and how he plans to utilize his specialness needs to remain a mystery until the end.

I don’t mind using a feint as a literary device. If the purpose of the book was to make me believe Nadya and/or Serefin were more important than they are and it turned into something else, I don’t think I’d be that upset. What I do not like is something being advertised as a strong female story when she is only there to tell the man’s story. Nadya has no friends, no conversations about anything that has anything to do with her as a person, nothing to signify she’s anything other than a mouthpiece for the gods and the reader’s eye into Malachiasz.

The ending was pretty good, so I’m hoping in the next book Nadya and Serefin get to develop as people instead of just magical beings. I hope Nadya makes a friend (two companions, Parijahan and Rashid, are used for some sort of comic relief but it’d be nice if they were able to extend some real friendship to her), I hope Serefin becomes the badass he was first billed as, and I really hope the takeaway teens are supposed to glean from the series is not that the ends justify the means.

Wicked Saints follows the disagreements and war between the 'holy' Kalyazin and the 'heretical' Tranavia. Through the eyes of Nadya (Kalyazin), who has magical powers provided by the saints, and Serefin (Tranavia), a heretical blood mage and the Prince of Tranavia, we see both sides of the story as Nadya tries to infiltrate and murder the heretical Tranavian King. I'm not going to say anything else about the plot, because I truly don't want to spoil anything for anyone who might want to read this one.

Now, I had a lot of issues with this book. But I'm going to mainly focus on three of them, because these were the things that were literally making it hard for me to read (it took me over a month to finish, which is really weird for a YA book).

1. The writing style. To me, the writing was just sub-par. It read like a fan-fiction (which is totally fine if that's what you're seeking out to read, but I wasn't). I felt like it kept flipping from very difficult Slavic-type names and places, to full on conversational Americanized teen, and that just didn't flow well for me. I felt like the characters and the atmosphere were completely underdeveloped, so I really had no one to root for.

2. Speaking of characters... Initially, I was intrigued and rooting for Nadya. *YAY A STRONG FEMALE LEAD*. Then I was completely disappointed . Not only was she not developed as a character, but she almost became a backseat driver to her own story? When a book is being told from the perspectives of two characters (Nadya and Serefin), it's weird when it feels like Malachiasz becomes the main character. Nadya slowly became a secondary character with no personality other than doing stupid things because of a *gasp* CUTE BOY .

3. Representation? . I'm not looking for diversity in everything I read (although, I do prefer it). But what I *really* didn't like, was that the two POC characters became tokens, and were once referred to as "creatures of the desert".

Anyway, I found this one to be a drag overall (and I know I am in the minority here, and I fully accept that). I truly hope that the people that pick it up, like it more than I did.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for an early copy for review. The book will be released on April 2nd, 2019.

Wicked Saints has an intriguing and creative premise, but its execution fails at making this a unique story. The pace is mostly steady, but plot is very similar to other YA Fantasy books out there. The mix of religion, magic, and politics is interesting and well done, right up until the point where it starts to fall apart at the end of the book.

Emily A. Duncan’s writing is good. The setting and dual POVs are well written, and the characters have distinct voices even though they aren’t as developed as they should be. Nadya, in particular, becomes a secondary character to her own story as soon as the enemies-to-lover trope comes into play and she gets a love interest. This novel had a lot of potential, but it sadly didn’t match the high expectations surrounding it.

I’m bummed. This sounded like such a cool and unique novel, despite all of the Bardugo comparisons. I’m sad to say this reads like a really generic YA Fantasy novel. The world-building is somewhat different, and the religion and magic bits are interesting, but they don’t stand out enough to really capture your attention. I had a terrible sense of deja vu while reading this, but maybe younger or new readers to YA will feel differently.

The dual POVs are well done, but Serefin and Nadya fall a little flat when it comes to their personalities. The novel has a great beginning and an amazing introduction to both of them, but as the plot progresses, the characters kind of get lost in their journeys. Nadya, especially, totally loses focus as soon as Malachiasz, her love interest, is introduced. Her story becomes his story, with Nadya as a secondary character, going along with his plans.

The ending is also a bit… messy? The work done to develop the world-building in the beginning and middle of the novel seems to go bye-bye when you reach the end. Duncan sacrifices her own universe in order to execute certain plot points and get the characters where she wants them to be, which feels a little bit lazy and cheap.

In the end, Wicked Saints just doesn’t work for me. The setting is really well written and the world-building is interesting, but the lack of character development and sidelining of the main female character for romance hurts what could have been an interesting story. I’m sure some people will love this, but I… didn’t.

4.5/5 Stars

I've known about Something Dark and Holy for such a long time (thanks Tumblr) and now the long awaited Wicked Saints is finally here! Emily A. Duncan does not disappoint with a brutal and bloody beauty of a book that boasts a bunch of backstabbing. There's forbidden romance, prophecy, high stakes, opinionated gods, and characters that come to life on the page.

Nadya is a force to be reckoned with; blessed by the gods with divine power and hears their voices in her head. Serefin is the feared blood prince just trying to stay alive while typically drunk. Malachiasz is a dark, broody mystery riddled with anxiety seeking change. All three of them have my soul as well as the incredible side characters like Parijahan, Rashid, Ostyia, and Kacper.

Set in a decidedly grey world inspired by Poland/Russia, a riveting story unfolds as the three leads finds themselves wrapped up in a holy war. The writing is the perfect blend of straight to the point and snarky and all the dialogue is so on point. It's fast paced yet patchy at times and the magic of gods and blood is fascinating. While it starts simple, things start to get complicated real quick.

Overall Emily A. Duncan's Wicked Saints was an epic debut with a deliciously dark world and characters that left me reeling. Nadya, Serefin, and Malachiasz were all driven individuals trying their best and I couldn't help but fall for each of their disaster filled personas. Plus I'm forever in favor of books with Polish and Russian based worlds. Obviously I loved this one and totally recommend this to fantasy fans!

Emily Duncan is a stunning new voice in young adult fantasy fiction, and readers of the genre will love her. Wicked Saints is a dark and bloody story about one girl who must understand her own power while navigating the complex relationships between good and evil and the shades of gray in between. . Admittedly, I don't read much in this genre and seeing the word "mage" on the first page almost sent me running, but the story is a gripping and kept me engaged until the end. I look forward to the next book in this series.

You'll LOVE it if...you want to see gods and monsters do battle.

I absolutely ADORE entangling god-like beings in a story as real, accessible, touchable characters. (For other examples, see my love of Claire Legrand's Empirium trilogy or Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials universe.) This stuff is very much My Thing and this antagonistic triangle between mortals, monsters, and gods develops with some of the most enticingly menacing tension I've read in recent months. Although it's a little easier to choose which nation to sympathize with in the on-going war, Emily focuses in on the soldiers, spiritual and militaristic, who actually have to defend the broader ideologies at play. At such a personal level, reader loyalties become complicated and almost impossible to untangle. As the plot progresses, one even begins to wonder if the characters are allies of their gods, pawns, or slowly gaining control over them. While the interpersonal battles dominate Wicked Saints, it's this grander experiment with belief, obedience, and free will that interests me most as the Something Dark and Holy trilogy unfolds.

You'll LIKE it if...you appreciate snarky banter.

The majority of witty dialogue comes courtesy of Malaschiaz, the is-he-or-isn't-he-a-bad-guy figure in Nadya's journey. At its best and most sparkling, the barbs traded between the pair will elicit out loud laughter...not a common occurrence for me when reading. However, not all of the banter worked for me — in general, I was expecting and hoping for a graver tone throughout the novel. This could be a result of whatever reading style I've developed, though. In almost every other book I've read that deals with a serious plot and not-always-serious characters, the cheeky dialogue can sometimes fall flat. It classifies as a slight mismatch between reader and book rather than a shortcoming in the story itself, since this is something consistently inconsistent across books for me. And for those who loved the back-and-forth in Six of Crows or The Gilded Wolves, Wicked Saints serves up its own, macabre rendition.

You MAY NOT LIKE it if...you need a clear "good guy" to root for.

This is actually a huge positive for me as a reader. I love morally ambiguous — or downright bad — characters that authors can coax me into sympathizing with and rooting for. The bad guys in real life...well, they hurt real people and only inspire melancholy, at best. Which is why I consider novels like Wicked Saints such a gift: I get to witness the indulgence of greed, wrath, lust, and all the other deadly sins without a modicum of guilt or a single twinge of my conscience! In my opinion, the best fiction makes it feel good to be bad. I explain all of this knowing that there are other readers who prefer a sunnier outlook and stories with a clear line drawn between good and evil. If that's your overall taste, or just the mood you're in today, Wicked Saints won't satisfy it. But for those who appreciate a little darkness in their books (or who, like me, crave it), Emily has provided an absolute smorgasbord to feast on.

Hello darkness


Dark, f*cked up fantasy has come to YA, and it's here to stay. Emily rides at the vanguard with her death metal Polish Russian dark religion murder epic. And yes, it's just as devastatingly beautiful as it sounds. I shredded through this book in a couple days. With its sharp prose, morally ambiguous characters, and ruthless plot, it's the kind of book that opens wounds, leaves scars, and keeps you clamoring for more.



Happy nightmare children


I've been following Emily for a long time, and I only needed to know that she loved European black metal and Kylo Ren to know that I was going to adore her book. Her prose is super tight. Sharp but not flowery, evocative without getting in its own way. Her dialogue is naturalistic and full of bone-dry wit. She throws in enough descriptions to ground you in her world, without overloading. Sprinklings of Polish and Russian terms. Snippets of culture. The effect is a dark, bitter, gray atmosphere with an undercurrent of something painfully magical.



In this gloomy world, she lets her characters play. Nadya is a force of nature, ruthless, sharp, and unapolgetically brutal. Just try to call her unlikable. There's also some whimsy there, since she regularly has silent conversations with the gods, who give her her powers and are also kind of annoying know-it-alls. Our other POV is Serafin, gin-soaked blood prince, who has a reputation for torturing people from the inside out but is actually just kind of an awkward-as-hell mess of a human. I love them both dearly.



Then there's Malachiasz. Dear god, I can't wait for his POV in book two. He's a violent snarky mystery who flirts as hard as he kills, and doesn't give a shit what you think about him. Even the side characters have a strong presence. I can't wait for more of Ostyia, flirty murdery lesbian, especially. The interactions between all our heroes are fraught with duplicity, rage, and sarcasm. Who needs plot? I could read an entire book that's just the three mains talking.



Let there be blood


There's a plot though, don't worry. Ho boy, you're in for it. With characters who each have life-or-death goals and are willing to break any rules to get it, you know there's going to be chaos. The overarching scaffold is a holy war between fake-Poland, full of godless blood mages, and fake-Russia, divine land of sanctimonious saints and clerics. On a personal level, Nadya wants to destroy the blood mages for her gods. Serefin wants to win the war and avoid getting assassinated by his father. Malachiasz wants to save his country if he has to betray everyone to do it.



Cue chaos as the three of them weave in and out of each others lives, wreaking havoc and discovering that the lines between good and evil aren't so simple, their enemies aren't so obvious, and the relationship between the gods and blood magic is darker and more complicated than anyone understood. It's a breakneck plot resting on constantly shifting sands of betrayal, hidden motives, attempted murders, and lots and lots of blood. But there are also some interludes of truly hysterical banter, scathing flirtation, and reluctant romancing.



Dark and holy


I can't recommend this book highly enough. I could nitpick some aspects of pacing or whatnot, but that wouldn't do it justice. It's like Leigh Bardugo's Grisha with the murder dial turned up to 11. I found myself gasping and squirming the whole way through, and had such a book hangover after the last page that I couldn't read anything for days. I can't wait for everyone to meet the messy, compelling humans that Emily has spawned.

Wicked Saints is about a girl (Nadya) who has been blessed by the gods -- she can channel their power as a cleric and do magic unlike any other. Accompanied by new friends, she sets off to end the war between her own country (Kalyazin) and a neighboring one (Tranavia), one that practices blood magic, heresy.

As the main character, Nadya was kind of all over the place. She is at once immensely powerful and immensely naive. She is devout, yet willing to go however far it takes to accomplish her goals. However, Wicked Saints is told in alternating POVs, and our other main character, Serefin, is far more interesting. The prince of Tranavia, we watch as he transitions from a determined warrior to a suspicious and leary court member. While Nadya ultimately propels the story and Serefin's chapters sometimes felt a tad unnecessary, I felt like they balanced each other out nicely.

But let's talk about Malachiasz. Introduced early on as the mysterious love interest, I'll admit, I was intrigued by him. However, his character is largely static for the majority of the book, especially as Nadya is falling for him. It's an enemies-to-lovers trope, and while I'm an absolute sucker for those relationships, this one just didn't have a good payoff. I shipped them more when there wasn't really anything going on between them because of the potential than when things started to progress more. The reason is this: Malachiasz never really opens up to Nadya (and subsequently to us, the reader) and never actually gives her a good reason to trust him or to fall for him. While I know that this is because he's ~mysterious~ and also because of plot reasons, it made me get bored of him about halfway through.

This book was a roller-coaster in terms of quality for me. The beginning of the book? Absolutely stellar. I saw Melany Parker comment that it was the best first chapter of a book she'd read in a while, and I wholeheartedly agree. Wicked Saints started out very strong. However, it then began to drag a little, and the introduction of the Rawalyk, a The Selection-esque competition to marry Serefin shocked me with its ridiculousness. This book is Dark, and inserting the Rawalyk and making it a major plot for a while felt bizarre and didn't fit the tone at all. The book began to pick back up when Duncan essentially abandons the Rawalyk in favor of the main plot, and I was pulled back in. The end though...again, it didn't hold up. It felt a tad rushed, and as the machinations of all of the characters played out, I couldn't quite muster too much investment.

This book felt like a TV show that had an amazing pilot that the rest of the show could never quite live up to. That's not to say that I didn't thoroughly enjoy this book on the whole, because I did. I (and reviewers in general) tend to harp on the negatives in the aftermath, but the truth is that I blasted through this book in an afternoon, having fun all the way and wishing I was reading it every time I wasn't. While there are certainly things that I might change, I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fantasy. Will it be the best thing you've ever read? Probably not. But will you be highly entertained and relish your time with Wicked Saints? I think so.

Wicked Saints is Emily Duncan's much-anticipated debut title. The premise to this book is outstanding - The Grisha by Leigh Bardugo with a Joan of Arc theme. Unfortunately, the idea of the book was much better than the book itself.

The book was dark and gritty, taking part in a country at war. Told with multiple viewpoints, Duncan created a complex and imaginative world. The world-building was the highlight of the book. However, the execution of it is heavy-handed. The prose is adequate, but clumsy, resulting in a lack of emotional connection with the characters.

I think there is a solid book in here somewhere, but it'll take a strong editor and some re-writing to help capture the emotional connection from the readers. The lack of flow and pacing issues ruin the immersion, and make the book more chore than treat. There is still time before the publication, so I hope the author uses the time for revisions.

It all starts with potatoes. From there, you will be dragged all over the world of Kalyazin and Tranavia with a ton of characters who, if you pay attention closely, will be unreliable, betray your trust, and put you in situations you won’t figure out that you were just in until the next character’s third-person POV explains everything to you. Nothing is what it seems and everything is what it seems.

This book moderately kept my attention with its breakneck pace, but it lost some storytelling magic with its minimalistic backstory method of inserting quotes from historical books at the beginning of (almost) every chapter. The religious system of Kalyazin is reminiscent of both pagan gods and elevated humans to sainthood, mostly squished together to make a reader have to squint to figure out what’s going on with the system here. I felt the story was sacrificed for the gimmicky magical system, which also did not come across very well integrated into the narrative. Where does the magic come from? If you can answer that question, you probably wrote the book.

With the exception of a couple of the characters, the rest of the dramatis personae were one dimensional. I found myself liking only two of them with a modicum of interest; they were minor characters in this book, and one of them only exists on about 10 pages maximum. In fact, I think the other one does, too. Amazing. The twist at the end wasn’t a twist <i>per se</i>; I found it to be entirely predictable, though I was surprised with the part that was not meant to be a surprise (it didn't feel that way, anyway). It’s all very cryptic and confusing, but for the sake of not spoiling it for anyone, I’ll be as confounding as the story.

Despite the confusing plot and shallow players, I found myself enjoying this story altogether, and after the last book I read, any kind of plot with speed to it was welcome. This one happened to go like The Flash, who tripped on a rock about 3/4 of the way through the race and then got going again, crashed through the onlookers at the finish line, and found it hard to stop and go back for the trophy. Needless to say, the fans are still waiting at the finish line for a rundown of what exactly happened during the race.

My thanks to NetGalley for the ARC, for which I give my own opinion.

<i>Wicked Saints</i> is a book that I think would benefit from a better editor. The idea of the book is interesting--a young girl in a war torn Slavic land receives her magical powers from gods and goddesses. Her country is at war with a nation of heretics who believe in blood magic not divine magic. The characters in the novel are caught in the middle as no one is what they appear to be.

The problem is that the build up is extremely slow. I had to keep forcing myself to return to the book because the beginning was just a slog to get through. There's too much time spent with Nadya chatting with the gods and not enough developing her character. There's some good action in the middle that got me reinvested, but then the end is too rushed with the action happening much too quickly. It felt wildly uneven even as I grew to enjoy the book.

Overall, I actually ended up liking the characters and the plot--they both had potential, and I will most likely read the sequel, but I wish the editor had been a little more heavy handed in tightening up the plot and its pacing, and I wish the author had given Nadya a little more depth. I found her to be the least interesting character in the book.

Thank you NetGalley for the e-copy of this book.

This one was okay but didn't completely make me feel in love with it.


It was okay until 60% then I started getting really bored,jm sorry.

I will gave it 3 stars, I tought I would love it more

I adore Emily Duncan. She is a wonderful person to virtually friend on Social Media! But.this.book.... I just couldn't! I wanted to, and I couldn't stand it. The first chapter is where I lose my patience with it. None of the characters make sense after that. Nadya seems to simply be headstrong to the point of stupidity. However, as much as I wanted to love this book. I will continue to support Emily Duncan. I have two copies of this on pre-order! One is for a friend, and one for myself.
Bottom like is, the hook isn't great. The characters lack in dept, and try to make up for it by placing blood or the word blood all over the pages. The world is amazing, but this book is too caught up in the blood, and the imaginary depth of characters.
Emily Duncan is a beautiful soul. She goes out of her way to be a presence to everyone! I appreciate that in a person. Much less an author!! So I will be purchasing her books!
Thank you for the opportunity Netgalley, and Wednesday books!! You all are awesome!

I am absolutely obsessed with this book.

At the heart of it all, Wicked Saints is about two rival countries in a long-standing war fighting over something that has a source of contempt throughout history: religion. And this, my friends, leads us to our characters.

Our protagonist, Nadya, is devout in her faith. It isn’t just because of her country Kalyazin or the fact she was raised in a monastery. No, Nadya is a cleric who has the ability to communicate and use the powers of each of the Gods through prayer. The last of her kind, she has been kept a secret for all her life because her country is sure that she is the secret weapon they need to end the war. But after the monastery is attacked by their rival Tranavia, sacrifices are made in order to ensure Nadya survives – for she is their only hope.

While Nadya has the main point of view throughout the novel, we also are able to see things from Serefin’s side – which is great because he is a powerful blood mage and high prince of Tranavia. Oh, and also? He is the person in charge of staging the attack on Nadya’s home. While the war may be on the forefront of his peoples’ minds, Serefin has more to worry about – especially when his father demands he come back home in order to find a bride.

And our last major player? Malachiasz, a Tranavian blood mage who intends to bring the King down. Nadya must enter a reluctant deal with the boy, even if she doesn’t trust him, because at the heart of it all, they somehow have the same goals.

The part that I found to be the most interesting was actually the allegory of religion throughout the novel. I don’t think the book was overly religious, but I think it provided interesting perspective of the politicization of religion as a whole. Emily Duncan did a great job with taking something that is so defining in the history of the world and shaping it into a book that can keep readers engaged. I think the directions she goes can surprise even the most seasoned of readers while providing great commentary on the political issues of the world.

Moving on though, Wicked Saints is a dark book with twists and turns you might not see coming. Emily was great at making me think I guessed everything that was coming, and then *completely throwing me off course*.

Honestly, I am so excited to see this trilogy go on because I love a good story where the main lady realizes her own kick-ass abilities. I recommend this to all fantasy lovers, but especially those who enjoy the darkness that sometimes comes from this genre. (Please keep in mind, there are *abuse* trigger warnings)

Everyone was saying things so good about this book that I thought I would love it, and while it presents an interesting worldbuilding with a war that has been going on for years, clerics who have magic because they kind of comune with the gods and people who use blood magic, I got kinda uninterested by it.
We got Nadya, who is a cleric. It's ben decades since there was one, and she is very powerful. She can use the powers of not one god but a whole panteon. And despite the fact she sometimes get dizzy I just didn't feel like using all that magic really did cost her anything, so she wasn't very much compelling to me.
Then we have Serefin, the son a king who wants to hunt the cleric as they are blood magic users. His POW was by far more interesting than Nadya's because it gave the side of politics and intrigue, and he was the reason I kept reading as long as I did.
Finally, we have a character called
Malachiasz. One of the results of using blood magic is ending up like the Vultures, monstruous and dangerous creatures. And Mal (for short) knows more about it than I can tell without being spoilery. Also you can tell he is gonna be a love interest early on.
All of this said, the world was intriguing, as where the factions and it has dark subtones with lots of bloody battles, but I really didn't feel very invested in the outcome, as the characters didn't exactly caught my attention and I saw them as being quite archetypical: powerful mage, demoted prince, not quite human love interest. And some of the interactions seemed a bit off/forced to me.
So I am sorry but I ended up not finishing the book.

This was a fantastic book! Magic, romance, a little politics, he gods, religion or lack thereof was fantastic, such a well rounded story.! The characters were wonderful, the plot perfectly paced, keeping you intrigued from start to finish. I won’t say much more because I don’t want to give anything away, but reading this book is a must!! I can wait to read the next one!!!

This book was amazing! Can't wait to read more from this author! Thank you netgalley for the free arc in exchange for an honest review!

Okay.

Let me just start by saying that 'thrilling' this is not.

If there's one thing you should know about me, it's that I love dark books. Not necessarily dark topics, but dark atmospheres. Morally grey characters. Hopeless situations. If you describe a book as taking place in "a shadowy world of spilled blood" and "devastatingly gothic," you can bet I'm all over it. So when I got approved to read Wicked Saints a month early thanks to NetGalley, I was soooo excited.

Now, I am soooo disappointed.

I don't want to shit on this too much, because Duncan is quite obviously a very good writer. I was able to appreciate that. But I don't dance around my issues with books. And my issue with this book was ohmygodIwasbored.

I felt like all the stakes in this book were political, which they kind of were. And I'm a politics graduate, so I'm not against that. I guess it was just the fact that I...didn't care? Maybe it's because I'm the kind of person who needs more background and build-up to a conflict, and this one started in chapter one. I know a lot of people like that (getting into the action right away), but I am not those people. I need chapters of set up. That's just how I am. Being thrust into this war so quickly made it really difficult for me to know who I was supposed to rooting for or even what would happen if one side won. Like, I didn't care who won. That's a problem. I need way more back story as a reader, I guess.

Furthermore, this felt weirdly like a Grisha Trilogy spin-off to me? One of the goddesses is even named Alena, so I had the impression I was reading something that took place after Ruin and Rising but with a new set of characters. FYI - the Grisha Trilogy was pretty boring for me too, so it's not that surprising I wasn't a fan of this book. There was also a very Alina-Darkling dynamic between a couple of the characters (I won't say who because spoilers) that culminated in a cliché "you and I are the same, we can be great, let me show you the depths of your power" kind of thing.

Then there are the characters. The female MC, Nadya, was really difficult for me to like. She did a LOT of complaining about "heretics" and essentially thought everyone who didn't believe in her gods was scum. She does end up getting better over the course of the story, but as a very outspoken atheist this was SUPER irritating to me, because I can't stand those kind of people. And as to the number of times it was mentioned...sheesh, I felt like I was being banged over the head with the word "heretic." Plus, to me, Nadya was this weird mix of super moral but also murderous which was odd to say the least. She doesn't want anyone to die for her and appears to hate death but then a paragraph later she's slitting someone's throat like it ain't no thing. Wut? I hoped for her to be way more badass than she actually was.

The male MC, Serefin, was the only character I really liked. Bad boy who drinks a lot and has a lot of issues. I mean, we all know I'm weak for that type. But since there was no one I wanted him to end up with romantically, it just wasn't as fun. I just really appreciated that he gives no shits.

Also: THE NAMES. I don't know, they were really making it a struggle for me. I could not for the life of me unravel them in my head. There were too many gods, and every time one of their names came up again it took me way to long to remember if I'd already heard it or not, and then I had to remember what they were the god of. My memory is not good, folks.

I don't want to go into detail about the plot because of spoilers, but I was not very surprised by the twist. I mean, I didn't exactly predict it, but I feel like it was something that has been done in so many books that I was less shocked and more like, "Oh, okay. Got it." Maybe I just wasn't clicking, but the rest of the plot was very confusing to me. I felt as if I was never really able to work out what was happening and why. I just couldn't keep track of it for some reason. The whole concept of this group called the "Vultures" didn't make sense to me and I felt like I couldn't really figure out why they existed and what they were and what they were trying to do. Am I just a terrible fucking reader? WHO KNOWS. But....yeah. And the magic system was straight up illogical, IMO.

I don't feel good writing reviews like this, by the way. I really, REALLY wanted to enjoy this book. I just didn't, and I will never not be honest about my thoughts. That said, I seem to be in the minority, so you might like it a lot more than I did. Maybe my expectations were too high because this looked SO on brand for me. C'est la vie, am I right? I'd still be down to read something else written by this author. Because if there's one thing I adore, it's questioning one's own beliefs (or somebody else's). But in the end, this particular book struck me as a reimagined Grisha Trilogy made unnecessarily complicated.

I will leave you with these quotes, which I did enjoy:

"Having power granted to you, and acknowledging that beings of power exist, isn't the same as acknowledging that those beings are benevolent or even sentient."

"It's the concept of gods that I don't accept...(your people)...pin everything on the gods. Creation, morality, day-to-day interactions, their own thoughts. But who's to say that the gods care at all what individual people think or feel or do?"

Wicked Saints has all the elements of fantasy that are on-trend right now: morally grey characters, sometimes downright bad people doing really bad things, mixed with romance and intrigue. And all those things are present in Duncan's novel. That being said, it is a little buried under a magic system that doesn't seem fully developed, and sometimes the writing becomes distracting from the things that make the novel so compelling. The religious and theory-based discussion slow down the plot considerably, for those readers that like their loyalty to characters to be questioned, as well as books that make you think as read -- this is certainly that. For those that want something fun and fast-paced in the same way that Six of Crows or other Leigh Bardugo books are, this isn't that, although it has been marketed as such.

Overall, the Nadya is a very compelling protagonist, and following her journey as her loyalties shift and change, makes the wait through religious zeal and shifting alliances makes for a compelling read.

The cutting made me deeply uncomfortable, the love interest's mouthful of a name was unnecessary, and the plot line was entirely predictable. Definitely won't be recommending this.