This is going to be a hard one to review! I loved the first book in this series, Wicked Saints and was so happy when I got an eARC for Ruthless Gods. This sequel wasn’t completely what I was expecting and I have a hard time sorting through my feelings. But I’m going to give it a shot!

Ruthless Gods starts a couple of months after the final events of Wicked Saints. Nadya is still at court with Serefin but she is very much lost. Serefin is dealing with everything that happened surrounding is dad’s death and the very big consequences of his own brush with death. Malachiasz has completely turned into the Black Vulture and has gotten even stronger after his plans came to fruition.

The first 40% of the book took me forever to read. I think it took me at least 3 weeks to read those first 250 or so pages. And I was pretty disappointed to be honest. Everything was moving slow and I didn’t really understand what was going on. Usually I don’t mind a slow moving book and I can set aside my confusion because we will get clarity later on. But in this case I just didn’t connect to the writing and had to put so much effort into reading it. I saw a lot of positive reviews so I kept hoping I would get to a point where I would fall back in love with this series…

And luckily I did fall back in love! After that first 40% I read the rest the of the book in a couple of days. Every waking moment I wasn’t working or studying I was reading this book. Events started happening and I got back in the flow of the story. I wouldn’t necessarily say the second half of the book is more action packed but a lot does happen. We get some reveals and plot twists and most things started to make more sense. I definitely connected with the story again and loved where it was going.

The plot was so interesting. It was all about making choices for yourself, for your country, for your loved ones. And betrayals, so many betrayals! The atmosphere of the book was very creepy and I will not walk through a dark forest anytime soon ;). We get to see a bit more of the world and it was pretty terrifying haha.

We still have our amazing cast of characters but we also have some additions. And it was fun getting to know these new characters and see them interact with our favorites. After every couple of chapters we would get an interlude from the perspective of someone apart from Nadya or Serefin. I loved this addition and hope that will continue in the last book.

I still really really like the characters in this book! It’s so hard picking a favorite or a favorite ship. At the moment I have 3 ships and I adore them almost equally. We learn more about some of the characters we already knew and it was so interesting getting a little peek at their backstory. Hopefully this will be expanded in the next book.

After a bit of a struggle with the first 40% of the book I loved the second half. I flew through it and just couldn’t put it down. There isn’t a release date for the third book yet so I have some time to come up with theories haha. I can’t wait to find out how the story continues and what will become of these precious characters. This is a must read for anyone that enjoyed Wicked Saints. And if you haven’t read that one yet, pick it up right now!

I finished reading this book a long time ago, and I finally have some time to write a review (I know, I'm late). I loved the first book, and the second book definitely delivers. It's a lot longer, with a more complex plot and a definite character growth. I love Nadya, even though I was irritated by her a few times in the book, and Malachiasz, who I felt so sorry for the majority of the book, but I can't get myself to ship the Nadya-Malachiasz duo. I continue to be intrigued by the presence (or lack thereof) of different gods, and I love the unique setting - Duncan's world-building is definitely dark. Totally recommend this to all my students! Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this eARC. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own

Prepare yourself to settle in with this one for the long haul. It's an investment, but I found it worth the time. Ruthless Gods is a very slow burn with an extensive reach. There are lots of intermittent moments of tension and action to keep things going (just as in the first book in the series). There are also places where the prose gets quite thick and confusing, so a slow and steady reading past is best. Don't expect this to be a single sitting read. Plan to spend a little time here. It is a rewarding read, but takes some patience and diligence.

This continues to be a severely dark and BLOODY series. It is marketed as YA, but absolutely feels more adult to me due to the level of macabre. I'd say split the difference and regard this one as New Adult.

There were some improvements over the first novel and some places where this second in the trilogy felt a little less polished. There was a lot of repetition utilization to hammer home pieces of the plot or bits of foreshadowing. This grew a little frustrating. The inclusion of cultural dialect (there is heavy Russian and Polish influence in the creation of this world) continues to be a bit of a struggle for me. My ability to infer language apparently just isn't that great and this frustrated me on occasion. On the positive side, the plot progression is good and the world development continues to be very detailed and intriguing. Character development felt more balanced and well fleshed out in this sequel, owing partially to the setup from the first novel. Nadya is admittedly a less than sophisticated character and feels, at times, annoyingly naive, but this can easily be attributed to her upbringing and age. She acts very much like a teenager in her confusions of both her situation as a cleric and her romantic feelings for Malachiasz. It can be frustrating as a reader, but seems appropriate to her particular situation. I would have liked to have more of Parijahan in this novel, but I have a feeling that she will be making more of an impact in the finale.

As with Wicked Saints, the ending of Ruthless Gods gave some resolution and satisfaction, but it also left open some large pieces in the plot for the next installment to explain and solve. This book made me pause and pay attention. It is an intricate read, but an entertaining one. There is some overly cerebral construction, but it is worth the investment to focus and take the time to move through the pages. I am looking forward to the concluding novel in the series and hope for a satisfying conclusion.

Emily A. Duncan's Wicked Saints series is just as breathtaking now as it was when I started it. Second books sometimes lowers expectations, but not with Ruthless Gods. Ruthless Gods was unputdownable in the best of ways.

I love this book. I really enjoyed this book and well be reading this again. Emily A. Duncan has done a great job writing this book. I cant wait for the sequel. Great book. Thank you Netgalley and the Publisher for allowing me to review this anticipated sequel to Wicked Saints.

4.5 stars

Considering the fact that I hated the beginning of this, no one is more shocked than me that this is a damn good book.

First 100 pages: ★
Plot: ★★★★★
Character development: ★★★★★

This is the second book in a series, so if you don't want to be spoiled for Wicked Saints, please check out that book first!

Wicked Saints was a surprisingly polarizing read in 2019, and I think Ruthless Gods will be similar—if not for the same reasons. Ruthless Gods, in my opinion, is LEAGUES better than the first novel, but only if you can pass through the first 100 pages of extremely vague writing, frustrating lack of explanation, and several wham-bam 180 degree flips that completely switch many things up.

THIS REVIEW WILL, OUT OF NECESSITY, SPOIL WICKED SAINTS.

I'M SERIOUS, PLEASE STOP IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED.

Nadya, Malachiasz, and Serefin are all having a bad time at the beginning of this book as the end of Wicked Saints left us with a LOT to unpack. Nadya's gods have left her and she's broken many of her homeland's laws to save the enemy. Malachiasz's last-minute betrayals left him with the powers of a god, but no way to keep his sanity and control them. Serefin was literally murdered and brought back to life, and now a god is whispering bad things in his ear.

Oh, and the gods we thought were scary in the first novel aren't even the ones we need to worry about.

Now, like I said above, the first 100 pages of this novel were ROUGH. We're talking, I was so frustrated I thought someone else had wrote this, rough. Considering it takes places very close to the ending of Wicked Saints, I was surprised to find the first bit of this book lagged. It seemed like an odd form of a holding pattern, as not much happened and yet lots was happening, and we were still primarily doing odd character-building scenes that also altered previous facts. I think all of the alterations were positive and made the plot stronger...but wish that they had been either included in the first book or brought to us later, because I was making audible frustrated gripes when the witch, Poletga (spelling is butchered, sorry) gave us these vague nothings over and over with each of our characters.

But, as you can see from my 5 star rating, this was a damn good book. I loved that it kept me on my toes, and the additions to the plot were exciting and made the story more original than I gave it credit for in Wicked Saints. In particular, I hope we see more of the Akolan politics in the third book, as it did give this fantasy world a fresh burst of diversity. AND I hope we continue to keep up the pace with this incredibly dark, mythic approach to old gods that really cemented itself in this installment.

It's unflinchingly bloody, twisted, darkly sensual, unrepentant, and surprising. I loved it.

Thank you to Wednesday Books via NetGalley for an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

Ruthless Gods was an amazing sequel to Wicked Saints. Emily A. Duncan's writing has yet to bore me. I enjoyed reading this book so much, maybe even more than Wicked Saints. Like in Wicked Saints, the chapters go back and forth between Nadya and Serefin's pov, but in this book, we actually get a few interlude chapters from the points of view of Malachiasz, Kacper, Parj, and Katya, which in my opinion makes it even better. There was so much going on in this book with Nadya, Malachiasz, and Serfin. Serefin starts hearing things and hallucinating, Nadya may have lost her connection to the gods, and Malachiasz has too much power.

Once again Nadya needs to get to a certain monastery to beg the gods' forgiveness for using dark magic and choosing Malachiasz. The only way there in through a forest in which you need divine power to make it through, so once again Nadya needs Malachiasz's help. She fights herself the whole way, fighting her love for him and unable to forgive him for betraying her in the first place and not knowing whether he's lying. Serefin is fighting his own battle with the voice in his head and taking over his vision. Enemies must work together again in this book in order to figure everything out and make it through the forest.

I am a huge fan of these books and I'm so ready for the next installment. This is such a great fantasy series and I'm looking forward to reading anything and eveything this author writes. I highly recommend this book to fantasy lovers.

Any of you who have read my Wicked Saints review will think it quite obvious that the sequel, Ruthless Gods, was one of my most-anticipated releases of 2020. I absolutely loved Emily A. Duncan's review when it came out last year. I loved every minute of it. And I couldn't wait for more. When reading the first book, I found that I needed a little bit of time to find my bearings in this cold fantasy world that Duncan has written for us. But I found that I quite enjoyed it once I figured out how most things work! I was also completely smitten with the romance plot (which should come as no surprise to those of you familiar with my tastes, haha).

I found the writing to be a little different from what I had normally been used to, but that it also had a beautiful edginess to it. And I ended up becoming a fan of Duncan's writing style by the end of book 1 as well! But, you're not here to read another review for Wicked Saints, haha (though I promise that this was all relevant and a lead-in for my review for book 2)...but I will turn to Ruthless Gods now.

I wasn't sure where the second book would pick up based on where the first book left off, but I think Duncan handled that pretty well. I was a little upset about some things, but then she would introduce something that would make me forget that I was ever upset (and this happened a number of times throughout Ruthless Gods). I found the second book to be a different experience from Wicked Saints, but can't say that I'm surprised! Many of you have likely already read my rambles about my struggle with enjoying sequels, and many of you are probably also in the same boat.

I found that I was a bit more confused while reading Ruthless Gods than I was reading Wicked Saints, but that's because Duncan continued elaborating on the world and its magics and its gods. I will say that I am not troubled by my confusion, however, as I have faith that Duncan will clear a lot of things up in the next book (if it's the final in the series, that is). There was also a lot of character development in this book, which I won't address in detail due to potential spoilers. But I can say that I like some characters more now, and like some characters less, haha.

All in all, I still loved the world, the atmosphere, and the characters. I love stepping into Duncan's world, no matter how dark it is (or maybe because of how dark it is), and I can't wait to go back once the next book is released!

Fudge.... that book these characters are all so messed up but it’s perfect! Emily has created such a wonderful gothic story that my little black heart loves. I need book three now!

3.5 stars

I really like how dark and gritty this series is, with all the dark magic and the darker themes, it helps separate this series from a lot of other magic based fantasy series that I read. I also liked where this book left off and I am interested in seeing how this series wraps up in the next book, but I also feel like this book really suffered from second book syndrome. There was a lot of characters travelling from place to place, and while it made sense with the story, it really slowed down the pacing of the story. I was super engaged at the beginning, but I found myself losing interest in the middle due to the length of the descriptions and all the travel with little happening. The ending was pretty explosive, and I think it was a good set up for the next book in the series.

I really felt bad for some of the characters and the situations that the author put them in (Serefin). But some characters I struggled to feel bad for when they kept making the same mistakes over and over again. There were also a few new characters that were introduced, but were not developed enough for me to really care about them as much as others. Hopefully we see some more development in the next book!

Overall, this series continues to be a dark and gritty fantasy and I can't wait to see it wrap up.

Woah woah woah. Emily Duncan is a genius, her writing is beautiful and it flows nicely. The problem is me for sure, I just couldn’t keep up. I had to re read areas to understand what was happening and to place the scene. I read to the end and was left on a. Cliffhanger, I don’t know if I care enough to read the final book.

I was given this book in exchange for my honest review.

I have had a really difficult time reading this year, but this 500+ paged beauty has kicked that in the butt. It has been a while since I've read a book this large and I read it in a matter of days, which is fast for me especially considering how reading has gone for me this year.
To no one's surprise, Ruthless Gods is full of monsters and I was LIVING for it. I was immediacy yanked head first into this dark, glorious world, falling completely in love with this high fantasy series once again. From the first to the very last page, I was HOOKED. I loved how the world and the magic in it were explored piece by piece. There was never a dull moment and I just absolutely adore this masterpiece. It is just the type of fantasy world I've been wanting to fall into.

The book explored each of the characters in new and interesting ways, showing different parts of some that we've never seen before. I particularly enjoyed Nadya and Serefin's character development and how they come to terms with their current predicaments. Malachiasz is still quite a mystery to me, but he's also a bit of a mystery to the characters as well.

Also, I'd just like to take a moment to say that the writing in this book is freaking amazing. There were a couple paragraphs I just had to share with someone because the writing is just utterly brilliant. I can't wait for the third book and this will likely end up being my favorite book of 2020.

This books slides in nicely after the first. In a group we are only ad strong as the weakest member, but what if they each have a burden to bear? This beautifully written follow-up made me want to immediately read the promised third installment, right then and there. I probably would have pulled an all nighter as I did with this. Usually, with this genre, I can take it slow and stop reading after a while. Nope, this was the epitome of page turners. Open this up and enjoy.

This was an amazing sequel! I’ve come to really love this series. The characters are so interesting and their dynamics keep me wanting more of this story. This story is similar to other Russian inspired ya fantasies but I feel it really takes its own perspective and becomes an entirely different story. Some chapters surprised me with how dark this book could be and I loved it! Can’t wait for more! Also, can’t wait to see if my ship is gonna happen :)

DNF at 50%

I tried. I really did. The first book was okay; I got through it. I picked up this one from NetGalley hoping it would improve, like a lot of second-in-a-series books tend to. But it was quite the opposite. I found the plot incomprehensible and the writing extremely unpleasant. This could just be a Me thing - a lot of other people seem to enjoy this series. But to me it's just poorly written Darkling fanfiction.

I was given a copy from netgalley for an honest review...

This book was great. The pacing was amazing! Highs and lows both were there. Sucks you in and makes it hard to put down If you want an evil book boyfriend this is the one for you.(actually saw quite a few people agreeing with me on that) Only wish this was written and released when I was still a teen definitely would recommend to all my reader friends

I love how gory and dark and bloody these books are. They definitely aren't for the faint of heart. Once you get into the world and fall in love with the characters its all you can do you to blast through to the end just to find out what could possibly happen next.

I had to reread the first book because for the life of me I couldn't remember a lot of the major details. And I found myself getting hung up on some of the same issues I had with the first book while reading Ruthless Gods. It feels like the main focus of these books are the dialogue. There is a LOT of dialogue and because of that, a lot of the transitions from one scene to the next seem to get muddled up in the storyline. I would find myself going back and rereading entire chapters because I had no clue how they got where they were, or who a certain character was that popped up. It gets a bit confusing when they are either having a lengthy discussion or straight into action scenes. The descriptions just aren't there and because of that I had a difficult time really connecting with the story.

Aside from that, I really do enjoy these books and think that even with the hang ups, they are still worth the read and are every bit as dark and twisted and lovely as they are promised to be. I loveeeeee the relationship between Nadya and Malachiasz. Their up and down and all over the place passion for each other pulls at my heartstrings so much. I canNOT get enough of them.

I think what's really done it for me in both of these books are the twists and wow moments that you just don't see coming. These books are far from predictable and there is so much happening its hard to tell where the story will go but by the end you are so blown away all you can do is just sit there for a minute and take it all in.

I will definitely be keeping up with these books to find out how it all ends. The only thing I wish is for more detail in the last book when it comes to descriptions or transitions between scenes. It gets really frustrating and confusing trying to figure out where I missed how things progressed. But that also might just be because these are the authors debut books. Hopefully these little kinks will get ironed out as she grows as an author. Highly recommend either way!

Sequels are always tricky. This one lost my interest, honestly, but I think it was just because I didn't love the pacing or the characters. I found them to be a bit stiff, like cardboard, in book one and since I didn't have a strong connection to them I couldn't hold on in book two. I know many others loved it, though, so I encourage anyone who enjoyed book one to give it a try!

Thank you Netgalley for providing me an e-ARC of this sequel <3

I never thought that I would get an advance copy of this book and I'm so happy that I read it.

Be prepare y'all, this book gets even darker than the first one. I also think that the sequel was so much better than Wicked Saints. I've gotta say that I've read this book really slowly... it was not a book that I needed during this quarantine but it was what my dark heart needed. I'm glad that I took my time with it... even if it took me 2 months haha. I had to switch my readings in between or otherwise I would've ended up in a reading slump.

This sequel brings up a lot more world-building and even more POV's: yep we're constantly switching between Nadya & Serefin but there are some chapters following Malachiasz, Parijahan, Kacper and Yekaterina. There's also more twists and turns. It's filled with eye gore and blood. (LOTS OF BLOOD).
I really enjoyed seeing these characters coming together and following their journey. I was definitely intrigued by Nadya & Malachiasz relationship... at times it reminded me of Reylo (but darker). There's also a cute m/m romance in this book, I think it's my favorite romance in this book. The story starts off 4 months after the events of Wicked Saints and the stakes are even higher. We're figuring out how Nadya's power manifest... we're also following an iconic drunk and tired prince who's goal was to sleep. Poor guy. I hope he gets his 8 hours sleep in the final book.

Overall, I highly enjoyed my time with Ruthless Gods with its twisted turns and gory eyes. Its creepy atmosphere made me miss Halloween. It's the perfect spooky book! I'm excited to see how it's going to end for these characters.



Rating: 4 stars.




If you haven't liked Wicked Saints, give a chance to Ruthless Gods because it's highly better!

2.75 stars? It took me a long long time to read this book. I was admittedly distracted with everything else that's going on in the world right now, but I didn't think that I would struggle with it as much as I did. The fact that I wasn't enjoying it as much as I'd hoped to also contributed to the "endless" feeling--I was turning page after page with what felt like no end in sight. My thoughts are honestly quite jumbled and that's a little bit like how I felt about how everything in this boo was presented. So I'm going to try to write a coherent review but sorry in advance if it's all over the place!

First off, there were elements that I did enjoy. What this book really excels in delivering is a very dark, very twisted read that's full of blood and magic. If you're looking for a read with sinister vibes, I could recommend this. Even though all the characters are morally grey, I can't fault them for wanting the best for their country and doing what they think is the best thing to bring about the end of the endless war. We're fed more bits about the history between the two countries and in particular about the history of the gods in Kalyazin and we find out that there's much more that has been kept a secret from everyone. Without spoiling it, I really liked this element about these monsters people worshipped, it was a unique twist that I didn't see coming but I wanted MORE (backstory and explanation).

In terms of characters, my favourite was still Serefin. I loved watching his struggle and seeing him unravel with what's inside him. He may be an evil bastard and very morally grey, but I can't help but love his character. I mean, I honestly don't think he's *that* evil. I also loved that he got his own romance although we don't get to see that much of it (could've done with more of that one than the one we got tbh)! We still get the characters from book one with an additional member to the party, a Kalyazin royal, who I actually really liked. That said, there was little development for many of the characters...

Coming to the part about the bits I didn't like... I think it might be safe to say that this writing style is just not for me. I found myself confused more often than not (I was throwing questions left right and center to the person I was buddy reading this with). Maybe the reader is supposed to feel that way but sometimes the prose just became too convoluted that I ended up skimming large chunks (and it still took forever to read) to avoid feeling too disgruntled. In this book we also get multiple POVs in 'interludes' and I found that a bit... meh (a little bit like this spastic review)! There was not much consistency in the character and frequency of the POV which frustrated me at times. One character who gets a bit more revealed about her backstory is Parj, but it's in very minor bits and pieces. I'm very curious to see how it will tie in to everything that's happened in the next book.

Perhaps what I struggled with the most though was Nadya. I honestly would've been happy only getting Serefin's POV and following Serefin's parts in the book because... Oh man. I found Nadya to be insufferable! I could've (maybe) dealt with her pining after Malachiasz but what I found incredibly frustrating was how she continued to be surprised that he would betray her time and again when 1) he's done it before (I mean, hello book one), 2) he's made no secret of being willing to do it again because his loyalty is to Tranavia and not to her; and 3) girl, you woulda done the same to him, too! Like, please. Why are you torturing us like this? Because that's what this "romance" was--torture! I just wanted them to be done. Her chapters were a repeat of the same song and dance and I think a lot could've been cut out and we still wouldn't have missed anything...

Overall, I'm pretty disappointed (lets count how many times I used the word frustrated in this review lol). I was really hoping that I'd love Ruthless Gods more than I did Wicked Saints but in the end I guess this just wasn't for me. I feel like there was a big missed opportunity for character growth in this book. I'm really curious to see how this series is going to end especially with that ending (without spoiling anything it had me like "woah" but also like "ugh"). I don't know if I'll read the last book (even though I feel like I've already invested this much time so I should just finish it, right?) but I do want to know how the story resolves itself. Do Tranavia and Kalyazin get saved or will the world succumb to the ancient and ruthless gods?

Thanks to St. Martin's Press for granting my wish to read the e-ARC for Ruthless Gods! You can bet I was hella shook that I got my wish granted because that literally never happens, but I guess wishes can come true! I'm sad that I didn't love this one more though.