I recieved this book for free in exchange for my honest review. My thoughts are my own and mine alone.
Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan
Published: April 2nd 2019
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Format: E-ARC
Pages: 400 pages
Challenges: Goodreads, ARC Challenge
“Prepare for a snow-frosted, blood-drenched fairy tale where the monsters steal your heart and love ends up being the nightmare.” - Roshani Chokshi, New York Times bestselling author of The Star-Touched Queen
A girl who can speak to gods must save her people without destroying herself.
A prince in danger must decide who to trust.
A boy with a monstrous secret waits in the wings.
Together, they must assassinate the king and stop the war.
In a centuries-long war where beauty and brutality meet, their three paths entwine in a shadowy world of spilled blood and mysterious saints, where a forbidden romance threatens to tip the scales between dark and light. Wicked Saints is the thrilling start to Emily A. Duncan’s devastatingly Gothic Something Dark and Holy trilogy.
“This book destroyed me and I adored it.”- Stephanie Garber, New York Times bestselling author of Caraval
Initial Thoughts
When I first heard about Wicked Saints I was super excited to get my hands on it and read it right away. I loved the cover and the book sounded like something I would love. Then I recieved an amazing email asking me to be part of the tour and I of course jumped up and down for a few mintues then jumped at the chance to be part of the tour. As soon as I receved the book I again jumped right in and I couldn't put it down!
While Reading
I was on the edge of my seat the whole time reading this book. I must say right away that my emotions while reading Wicked Saints was up and down the whole time. The way author Emily A. Duncan writes is just breathtaking. You can feel everything that the characters are feeling and I never knew what was going to happen next. This book was exactly the kind of book I needed to read when I read this one. I've been needing something gothic to read and did this one hit that right on the head. I'm going to talk about the world building in just a few, but I didn't want to come out of this world and for that I can't wait to read the next book in this series. The world building was just so delicious that you can tell that this amazing author took a lot of time building it. You could tell she knew exactly what she wanted and was seeing as she was writing, because you see it as you read.
If you love Fantasy books as much as I do, lets be honest here, I'm not sure there is a person out there that does, but if you do then this book is for you. It has everything you would expect in a fantasty but so much more. The funny thing is while I was reading this book, I was trying to be a bit more critical with my thoughts about it. I just made a post a few weeks ago about how I was going to be more critical of what I'm reading. It was so hard to do so with this book, because I was so hooked and there wasn't anything to be critical about. It's that good, at least to me, there are some mixed thougths about this book already, but I couldn't get enough of this storyline.
I don't usually like too many books that have multipul POV's but since this one only had two it was easy to keep up. I'm not even going to mention the ship to die for that's in this book. One that had me screaming at my Kindle at two o'clock in the morning. Nope not even going to mention that at all!
My Thoughts After Reading
At first I wanted to just jump right back in and start this book all over. That's how amazing this book is and how amazing the world building is. After I sat there for a few hours, I couldn't get this book out of my head, even after a few days. Now that it's been released, I need this book to be on my shelf where all my favorites fit. I'm pretty sure this is my favorite release from this year! I've already told about 5 of my besties about this book and they can't wait to read it now too. You won't be dissapointed if you love fantasty and amazing ships like I do! Honsetly, I think this might have to be a re-read for me. I'm not sure I can wait till the next one is released and this one just came out today!
All in all, I love this book so much! If you didn't already relalize this from this review. Go pick up your copy today!
Of course I'm giving Wicked Saints an Ali Bookshelf....
Plot: 20/20
Characters: 20/20
Writing: 20/20
Creativity: 20/20
Cover: 10/10
Ending: 10/10
If I could give this book a higher rating than a 5 puppy I would! It's really that amazing.
Z H D A
L A P T E V A
Horz stole the stars and the heavens out from underneath Myesta’s control, and for that she has never forgiven him. For where can the moons rest if not the heavens?—Codex of the Divine, 5:26“It’s certainly not my fault you chose a child who sleeps so deeply. If she dies it will very much be your fault, not mine.”Startled by bickering gods was not Nadya’s preferred method of being woken up. She rolled to her feet in the dark, moving automatically. It took her eyes a few sec- onds to catch up with the rest of her body.Shut up!It wasn’t wise to tell the gods to shut up, but it was too late now. A feeling of amused disdain flowed through her, but neither of the gods spoke again. She realized it was Horz, the god of the heavens and the stars, who had
woken her. He had a tendency to be obnoxious but generally left Nadya alone, as a rule.Usually only a single god communed with their chosen cleric. There once had been a cleric named Kseniya Mirokhina who was gifted with unnatural marksmanship by Devonya, the goddess of the hunt. And Veceslav had chosen a cleric of his own, long ago, but their name was lost to history, and he re- fused to talk about them. The recorded histories never spoke of clerics who could hear more than one god. That Nadya com- muned with the entire pantheon was a rarity the priests who trained her could not explain.There was a chance older, more primordial gods existed, ones that had long since given up watch of the world and left it in the care of the others. But no one knew for sure. Of the twenty known gods, however, carvings and paintings depicted their human forms, though no one knew what they actually looked like. No cleric throughout history had ever looked upon the faces of the gods. No saint, nor priest.Each had their own power and magic they could bestow upon Nadya, and while some were forthcoming, others were not. She had never spoken to the goddess of the moons, My- esta. She wasn’t even sure what manner of power the goddess would give, if she so chose.And though she could commune with many gods, it was im- possible to forget just who had chosen her for this fate: Mar- zenya, the goddess of death and magic, who expected complete dedication.Indistinct voices murmured in the dark. She and Anna had found a secluded place within a copse of thick pine trees to set up their tent, but it no longer felt safe. Nadya slid a voryen from underneath her bedroll and nudged Anna awake.She moved to the mouth of the tent, grasping at her beads,
a prayer already forming on her lips, smoky symbols trailing from her mouth. She could see the blurry impressions of fig- ures in the darkness, far off in the distance. It was hard to judge the number, two? Five? Ten? Her heart sped at the possibility that a company of Tranavians were already on her trail.Anna drew up beside her. Nadya’s grip on her voryen tight- ened, but she kept still. If they hadn’t seen their tent yet, she could keep them from noticing it entirely.But Anna’s hand clasped her forearm.“Wait,” she whispered, her breath frosting out before her in the cold. She pointed to a dark spot just off to the side of the group.Nadya pressed her thumb against Bozidarka’s bead and her eyesight sharpened until she could see as clearly as if it were day. It took effort to shove aside the immediate, paralyzing fear as her suspicions were confirmed and Tranavian uniforms be- came clear. It wasn’t a full company. In fact, they looked rather ragged. Perhaps they had split off and lost their way.More interesting, though, was the boy with a crossbow si- lently aiming into the heart of the group.“We can get away before they notice,” Anna said.Nadya almost agreed, almost slipped her voryen back into its sheath, but just then, the boy fired and the trees erupted into chaos. Nadya wasn’t willing to use an innocent’s life as a distraction for her own cowardice. Not again.Even as Anna protested, Nadya let a prayer form fully in her mind, hand clutching at Horz’s bead on her necklace and its constellation of stars. Symbols fell from her lips like glow- ing glimmers of smoke and every star in the sky winked out.Well, that was more extreme than I intended, Nadya thought with a wince. I should’ve known better than to ask Horz for any- thing.
She could hear cursing as the world plunged into darkness.Anna sighed in exasperation beside her.“Just stay back,” she hissed as she moved confidently through the dark.“Nadya . . .” Anna’s groan was soft.It took more focus to send a third prayer to Bozetjeh. It was hard to catch Bozetjeh on a good day; the god of speed was notoriously slow to answer prayers. But she managed to snag his attention and received a spell allowing her to move as fast as the vicious Kalyazin wind.Her initial count had been wrong; there were six Tranavians now scattering into the forest. The boy dropped his crossbow with a bewildered look up into the sky, startling when Nadya touched his shoulder.There was no way he could see in this darkness, but she could. When he whirled, a curved sword in his hand, Nadya sidestepped. His swing went wide and she shoved him in the direction of a fleeing Tranavian, anticipating their collision.“Find the rest,” Marzenya hissed. “Kill them all.” Complete and total dedication.She caught up to one of the figures, stabbing her voryen into his skull just underneath his ear.Not so difficult this time, she thought. But the knowledge was a distant thing.Blood sprayed, splattering a second Tranavian, who cried out in alarm. Before the second man could figure out what had happened to his companion, she lashed out her heel, catching him squarely on the jaw and knocking him off his feet. She slit his throat.Three more. They couldn’t have moved far. Nadya took up Bozidarka’s bead again. The goddess of vision revealed where
the last Tranavians were located. The boy with the sword had managed to kill two in the dark. Nadya couldn’t actually see the last one, just felt him nearby, very much alive.Something slammed into Nadya’s back and suddenly the chilling bite of a blade was pressed against her throat. The boy appeared in front of her, his crossbow back in his hands, thank- fully not pointed at Nadya. It was clear he could only barely see her. He wasn’t Kalyazi, but Akolan.A fair number of Akolans had taken advantage of the war between their neighbors, hiring out their swords for profit on both sides. They were known for favoring Tranavia simply because of the warmer climate. It was rare to find a creature of the desert willingly stumbling through Kalyazin’s snow.He spoke a fluid string of words she didn’t understand. His posture was languid, as if he hadn’t nearly been torn to pieces by blood mages. The blade against Nadya’s throat pressed harder. A colder voice responded to him, the foreign language scratched uncomfortably at her ears.Nadya only knew the three primary languages of Kalyazin and passing Tranavian. If she wasn’t going to be able to com- municate with them . . .The boy said something else and Nadya heard the girl sigh before she felt the blade slip away. “What’s a little Kalyazi as- sassin doing out in the middle of the mountains?” he asked, switching to perfect Kalyazi.Nadya was very aware of the boy’s friend at her back. “I could ask the same of you.”She shifted Bozidarka’s spell, sharpening her vision further. The boy had skin like molten bronze and long hair with gold chains threaded through his loose curls.He grinned.
EMILY A. DUNCAN works as a youth services librarian. She received a Master’s degree in library science from Kent State University, which mostly taught her how to find obscure Slavic folklore texts through interlibrary loan systems. When not reading or writing, she enjoys playing copious amounts of video games and dungeons and dragons. Wicked Saints is her first book. She lives in Ohio.
