For those who enjoy...Escapism, Indigenous MC, Queer normativity and plots

Gem Echols is out for leveling the playing field. After everything that went down in Godly Heathens they only want for self.

Gem is a kid with an ax to grind with general existence and every heteronorm person they come into contact with which is weird.

Gem is walking chaos with undying love that teeters on obsession for Rory, Enzo and the meaning of "home"

Gem isn't a person made to be liked but if they didn't give up so easily maybe they could have been. Gem and co. are passed morally grey.

Thank you so much, St Martin's Press, Wednesday Books and NetGalley, for the chance to read this book in exchange of an honest review.

TW: abuse, violence, paedophilia, murder, death

After the insane cliffhanger of Godly Heathens, Merciless Saviors begins right after Gem's choice of killing the god of air with the Ouroboros, stealing his power. Now, everything is turned upside down and the scales aren't in balance anymore. With new complex powers Gem isn't anymore the god of balance and all the others' powers' are thrown into chaos. Death can reanimate corpses, Art's power are corrupted, the Shade can't use his own..
As Gem, Rory and Enzo struggle to find a way to restore the balance without sacrificing anyone else, but soon they are forced to face the idea of letting go of their humans lives and embracing their being Gods.

Merciless Saviors is the brilliant and even more gorier conclusion of the duology started with Godly Heathens. With the whole balance turned upside down, his mother who knows part of the truth, a complex relationship with both Rory and Enzo and a God Complex to deal with, Gem finds themselves with a mess to take care of and the desire of being finally themselves.
The story is complex, filled with twists and if in the first book the reader started to know a bit about the Ether, now it's even more clear and, also, more about Gem's, Enzo's and Rory's past lives and the choices they made and have to make now.

I absolutely loved this duology. I loved how fascinating and complex the characters are and how they were able to be selfish, brutal and cruel, fighting for themselves, their loves ones and their world of choice.
Beautiful.

this book was very interesting!!! i liked it. cant wait for yall to read it!!! had a great time reading it

This book is so emotional in the best way possible. It will make your heart race and then rip it out, and you'll love it. You won't just enjoy having a good cry along with the characters, you will enjoy the world of gods and magic and battles. I absolutely loved every second of this tense book and felt so deeply for the characters. i can not recommend this enough.

4 Stars This starts up right where we left off in Godly Heathens and just keeps going. I will admit to some confusion as I was reading the chapters but started understanding as we went further in the reading, I want to believe it was meant to be like this. Edgmon wrote this as an almost open ending, where more could happen but that is up to the reader. It is as darkly written as the first and more topics come up to be watchful for (read the content warning in the beginning). I will say this series was one of the most unique reads I have read in the last year and look forward to seeing more writing by Edgmon in the future.

I received a free copy of this book thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press; all opinions expressed are exclusively my own.

Having read the first book in this duology, Godly Heathens, I absolutely HAD to request this sequel. It wasn't just because I found the story of the first book compelling (though I did), but also because the ending of the first installment was just so unsatisfying for me that I felt cheated. I knew my true rating would depend on the sequel and whether the story still felt incomplete. It did not, and I absolutely loved this book!

We pick up exactly where Godly Heathens left off, and from there it feels like the story reaches its true climax and resolution. Without going into specific detail so as to avoid spoilers, I feel like the author sort of neatly combined all the threads of the first book in a way I found fulfilling. Would highly recommend this series on the caveat that the two books must be read together.

For sensitive readers, there is graphic violence and descriptions of gore, self harm, sexual assault, and body horror.

Merciless Saviors picks up right where Godly Heathens leaves off... and then does a time jump. Its not a huge time jump, but it kind of still throws you and maybe would have been better to end GH on a cliff hanger and start MS with the time jump.

Its also hard to write this review without spoilers because a LOT happens. The book felt strangely slower paced than the first given that, but considering the fact that MS is about acceptance I think it works well. I loved that we got more of Enzo and Rory in the sequel. It really added so much more to the dynamic with Gem. I do wish we had gotten to spend more time actually interacting with the environment in the second half of the book. For me, that is my biggest complaint. We're dropped into a totally new place and it felt glossed over, like a super fast tour with tons of exposition. Other than that, I really enjoyed Merciless Saviors and found the conclusion to be very satisfying.. and very Gem.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

<i>*I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*</i>

3.5

Merciless Saviors picks up right after the events of Godly Heathens, and then immediately has a two week time jump and I found that transition a little jarring. That being said, I love thematically what this book and duology is doing.

If Godly Heathens was indigiqueer rage, Merciless Saviors is acceptance. While this book is short, the character arcs are so satisfying and I loved the exploration of trauma and “goodness”. I love fantasy that deals with meddling gods, so to see these teens as reincarnated gods with all the drama and mess that millennia of knowing one another entails was a lot of fun.

These are the kind of books I wish I had had as a teen, so while I didn’t love this duology as much as I did The Witch King, I love that teens today get to see such diverse characters. I highly recommend reading these back to back if possible, or at least giving yourself a Godly Heathens refresher before jumping into Merciless Saviors, which is out in April 2024.

I loved the story, the world building and meeting the different characters. I felt completely immersed in the story and couldn't stop reading it. I love the cover and the name I always love seeing how that ties in after finishing a book.

* Thank you NetGalley & St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. *

So, Merciless Saviors picks up immediately where Godless Heathens leaves off. Fresh off fighting for their life, Gem's whole world has shifted AGAIN. Having killed another god, the power now hangs out of balance. Gem, Rory and Enzo must go to great distances and sacrifice more than they bargained for to put everything back in order.

I liked Merciless Saviors more than Godless Heathens, and that's saying something because I did like GH a lot. I did have some general issues in GH, but I actually really enjoyed the existential-ish crisis Gem had throughout MS. It answered some of my questions from the first book and left me with a better feeling about the whole good vs evil debate. I don't want to spoil too much about this book, because I really think you should read it, but I will say this:

If you thought Godless Heathens was a wild ride, Merciless Saviors gets even crazier in the first few pages.

I do highly recommend checking trigger warnings for this one, as there are some touchy subjects being handled (beautifully).

boycotting st. martins press, including wednesday books, will come back to this and post a full review when the publisher takes accountability

This was a great ending to the duology! I wanted it to end with me not being pissed at Gem and this is perfect.

I had read Godly Heathens a month before this, and it took me a minute to get back into the story and remember who everyone was as it was the awkward amount of time that is too soon to reread but too long that names were slipping my mind. But about 10% in I was firmly re-cemented into the world and back into the action.

This one definitely hit harder than the first. While I feel that it was a little slow, and I didn't like the time on earth as much as I liked the time spent in the world of the gods, I still enjoyed the character development we got there. This one was grittier, rawer, and realer than the first in a way that I deeply connected with.

One thing I loved in particular was how willing Gem, Rory and Enzo were to be honest with each other and how they weren't afraid to say the mean thing if it was necessary to say. Unapologetically loving each other in the way that they Needed, more than the way they Wanted. God I want a polycule like them.

I love this, and it built off the first spectacularly and somehow managed to exceed my expectations of a sequel.

Merciless Saviors by H.E. Edgmon is a stunning conclusion to the dulogy that began in Godly Heathens.
What I Loved
1. Excellent pacing
2. Good variety of representation
3. All story lines from book one are followed through on well here
4. Revisiting all my favorite characters from book one has gotten me excited to add physical copies of these books to my collection.

What Didn't work as well for me
1. Dialogue still feels a bit off in some places
2.The story picks up right after the end of book one but then gives me a time skip right after. simply doing the time skip right away may have been less jarring.

Who I would recommend this title for
Fans of Godly Heathens by this author will feel like they are visiting with old friends and catching up on their adventures as they dive back into this world in Merciless Saviors.

4/5 stars
Recommended for people who like: reincarnation, gods as humans, LGBTQ+ characters, portal worlds, morally gray characters, villains, mental illness

This review has been posted to Goodreads as of 11/30 and will be posted to my book review blog on 12/12 and to Instagram on 12/19.

TW mentions of rape and SA, body horror

SPOILERS FOR BOOK 1!

The start of this book pretty much picks up where the last one left off, though I do think it could've started a bit later since we get a two week time jump anyway. Mind as well just start there. I did like how Edgmon played around with narration styles in this one. Things are still from Gem's/The Magician's perspective, but now we get fragmented bits from different times and places. Plus we get a few chapters from other people's POVs, which I liked.

If things were looking like they took a turn for the worse at the end of the first book, well, they did. By killing The Cyclone, Gem has tipped the scales and now everyone's powers are all out of whack. On top of that, the consequences of what went down in the church mean they now have basically everyone gunning for them. Even Indy's not too pleased with them. That being said, I liked seeing the different 'odd' manifestations of everyone's powers and liked how the weirdness kind of brought them together.

One of my big issues in Godly Heathens was that I felt the characters used waaay too much modern slang, like "that's digital talk, not real talk" kind of slang. I'm happy to say that isn't the case in this one. The characters do use modern language and slang at times, and they do make jokes like the kind you'd expect to hear from modern-day teenagers, but it felt natural.

All that being said, while book 1 felt like a book about reincarnated gods, this one felt more like a book about mental illness and healing and the characters just so happened to be gods. I wanted more focus on their powers and what it means to be a god and what it means to be a god in vs not in the Ether. Instead, this book focused a lot on the characters' past traumas and their current healing journey, and particularly Gem's story and their self-image. Which is fine, and does carry over from book 1, but there's just so much more of it compared to the god stuff and I wish there was a greater focus on the god stuff. And part of my dislike of this is that Gem has pretty low self-esteem, they did in book 1 and they do now, and it's gotten worse and more intense and I cannot stand characters who just constantly punish and put themselves down. I understand where it comes from and that it's a reasonable (and common) response to what they went through, but it doesn't make me any more tolerant of it than if it stemmed from nothing.

Gem is going through a lot in this one as they've regained their memories of past lives pretty much in full and, seemingly, have begun/completed the transition from Gem to the Magician. There's a distance between them and humanity for a lot of the book, and as a result we see them becoming crueler and more god-like than in book 1, when Gem was still wholly themself. I'm not sure I entirely liked this new Gem, but they were certainly interesting. What else was interesting was that it felt like they were playing a part for a lot of it, which they even acknowledged feeling themself. Their personal struggles really come through and we see them dealing more with what happened in their immediate past (i.e., Gem's life) as well as the distant past (past lives and the Magician's life), as well as starting to heal their interpersonal relationships with their human and god families.

Willa Mae (henceforth Rory) remains one of Gem's/The Magician's number one supporters, though she seems to have fully come into recognition of who Gem is as a god. She's remarkably more okay with Gem's morally dubious actions than in the first book, though at the same time she still acts as somewhat of a stabilizing influence between Gem and the other gods (not as stable as, say the Evergod or Indy or the Librarian, but still). She felt more wild in this one, a little closer to Gem's gray morality, than she did in book 1, though she still exhibits the softness you would expect.

Enzo is a lot more present in this book and we get to see more of him as the Shade. While he does do things that are villainous, I don't really get the feel that he's this Big Bad that all the other gods are worried about. Being Enzo seems to have given him a lot of perspective and he plays the line of 'not too bad villain' well. He has moments when he's more evil than others, but by and large he seems to feel bad about some of the stuff he did in the past.

The other gods aren't around as much in this one as they were in book 1, which I was somewhat disappointed about. As I mentioned in my other review, I actually did like pretty much all of the gods, and so I wanted to see more of their interactions in this one, but the groups were largely separate in this one. Marian and Poppy seemed somewhat subdued, in the sense that they weren't quite as vengeance-oriented as I would've expected. I'm also not entirely sure what was happening with Indy and Rhett (both with each other and with everyone else). And the Heartkeeper was....I don't know. Like I said, this book felt more like it was a healing journey where people happened to be gods than a story about reincarnated gods.

A lot of what happened in the second half of the book didn't feel like it was driving anything other than internal changes for Gem, Rory, and Enzo (and really mainly Gem) and while I think I get where Edgmon was going with it, I don't really feel like some of it was necessary. I really think we could've stayed in Gracie or some other place that featured prominently in Gem's/Rory's/Enzo's lives and battled/figured things out there without all the extra stuff going on. Clover and the little roadtrip just felt extraneous.

Overall, the story is good, though I would've liked if it focused more on magic and the gods. I did like that the ending was pretty open. I think Gem, Rory, and Enzo's story is done, but there's definitely room for it not to be. Also for there to be stories told about the other gods.

4.5 rounded up. Merciless Saviors picks up right where Godly Heathens ends, and amps up the intensity by multiple degrees. Since I read one book right after the other, it was really cool to see how much of Godly Heathens was set up to Merciless Saviors, and how the final installment of this duology dives even deeper into the subconscious and the examination of "good vs. evil" in the face of extreme trauma and pain. H.E Edgmon has crafted a stellar story, and I highly recommend these books if you're okay reading a rather intense YA. The character development from the first book to this one is very well done, and I felt like Gem was a very well thought out main character to the story, and their connection to their found family is top-tier.

Some content notes to be aware of: trauma, suicidal ideation, violence, murder, torture, family abuse, sexual violence, body horror, and animal death.

A huge thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an eARC of this book in exchange for my thoughts. I'm very interested to see where book two goes!

Beautiful sequel, excellent writing, wonderful plot. Highly recommended for students in high school and college alike!

Big thank you NetGalley and to the publisher for the chance to review this book pre-release. I really enjoyed this book, though I did have some issues with the pacing and character development. The story had period of lulls that made me temporarily lose interest in picking it back up, but once I got through them, I enjoyed what I was reading. I feel like the characters could use a bit more development, but all in all, it was a good read, that I would still recommend to dark fantasy lovers. A more formal review will be available on my IG/TikTok and Goodreads.

DNF @10%

I shouldn't have even requested this book, because I didn't care much for the first one. For some reason I thought this had a chance of being better, but it isn't.

Gods, battles, and revenge. Picking up where the first book left off Gem, Rory, and Enzo are now in a battle for their lives as the other gods want revenge. Unfortunately for me, this one was not an improvement from the first book, there was a bit of a lack of character development and the overall story felt underwhelming. I really wish I liked this book more. I loved how inclusive the book was and the great variety of representation, but other than that, this one didn't have much going for it. The book had a lot of repetitive moments and felt a bit slow at parts. It has a happy ending overall and that's great. Yet despite all of that this series was just a miss for me unfortunately. Hopefully if you like stories with vast sexual orientations and representation and a bit of war and gods, maybe you'll have a better time with it than I did.

*Thanks Netgalley and St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*