Wicked Saints (Something Dark and Holy #1) by Emily A. Duncan
I received a complimentary ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Summary
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.
Book Details
Wicked Saints: A Novel by Emily A. Duncan
Series: Something Dark and Holy (#1)
Published April 2, 2019 by Wednesday Books
Young Adult Fiction / Fantasy / Dark Fantasy
Hardcover, 400 pages
My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
About Emily A. Duncan
“Emily A. Duncan was born and raised in Ohio and 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. She is represented by Thao Le of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.”
Book Review
Filled with a wintery landscape and lush writing, WICKED SAINTS paints a vivid picture of a world inhabited by mysterious gods where a centuries-long war brings together the lives of three unlikely allies. It is a world of clerics and blood mages, of assassinations and forbidden romance.
Emily A. Duncan creates such an exciting new world to escape to. Set in a fantasy landscape that takes inspiration from Russian and Polish folklore with a decidedly medieval feel, where monasteries and palaces tower and war rages, readers with feel the cold swept winds and the fiery sting of a blade.
“The girl, the monster, and the prince.”
Told through the dual points-of-view of Nadezhda, the girl who can speak to the gods and Serefin, the prince who walks a dangerous line between life and death, WICKED SAINTS has so many twists and turns with morally grey characterization and theological musings, readers will lose themselves in this read. The monstrous-boy who threatens all Nadezhda believes in will have readers swooning and worrying if their heart is about to be ripped out. Nothing is as it seems and I loved it.
In the End
WICKED SAINTS is an exciting start to the Something Dark and Holy series where two different types of magic, one divinely inspire and one that uses blood, set the stage for a war that neither outcome nor either one’s victory is the ending. Breathing, multifaceted characters and morally grey areas make it a standout and enticing read.
