Hi hello and welcome to a post that I've been waiting quite literally months to make! I am so excited to finally have the opportunity to share my review of what is probably one of my most anticipated book releases of all time- Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan. I have been absolutely dying to share this review and today, I can finally share my thoughts on this incredible book. Be sure to stick around and check out an amazing excerpt from Wicked Saints after my review! Let's get started!
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Title: Wicked Saints
Author: Emily A. Duncan
Pages: 400
Genre: YA Fantasy
Release Date: 02 April 2019
From Goodreads: "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."
Thank you to Wednesday Books for providing me with an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for review! All opinions are my own.
Thank you to Wednesday Books for providing me with an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for review! All opinions are my own.
So, just to give you an idea of my overall thoughts on Wicked Saints, these are screenshots from my Goodreads when I read it back in December:
I've been sitting on this review for so long and have been dying to post it because I just want to talk about how much I love this book! I had seen so much hype for it for so long (I shelved it back in January 2018 when it was still called Something Dark and Holy and had no cover or synopsis, just "Something dark and holy is coming") and when I was blessed with an invite to join the blog tour, I jumped at the chance and flew through the book far too quickly. I fell absolutely in love with every single word that I read and I will very likely be talking about this book forever.
Plot:
A lot of the time with first books (Wicked Saints is book one in a trilogy!!!) you can really tell that it's, well, book one. Does that make sense? It's clearly a setup book that just info dumps and introduces you to the world and the characters and most definitely sets the stage for the sequel. But with Wicked Saints, not only does it not feel like a debut, but it also feels like it's a book in the middle of a series. Everything is so well fleshed out and the story was so engaging and honestly very stressful at times! The story kicks off with a bang and doesn't stop until the final page and I was completely and totally hooked. You learn about clerics and blood mages and that the gods that Nadya can speak to (she can speak with all of them, by the way) and you find out that they've been completely shut out in Tranavia. One of my favorite things about this story is the religious aspects of it, believe it or not. There's a big overall discussion about beliefs, who is "right or wrong," and both Nadya and Malachiasz are so set in their ways of thinking that they butt heads quite frequently. They each have their own reasons for why they believe the way that they do and while both sides are incredibly compelling, there's this overall sense of wrong that you can feel when it comes to anything to do with the gods. You want to believe that both Nadya and Malachiasz are "right" but there's this looming sense of wrongness that you can't exactly place but it keeps you going, keeps you turning the page to find out more. That's the sign of a good book for me as a reader, when I'm reading and I find myself getting so deep into the story that I keep wanting more and before I know it, I've accidentally read half of the book when I only intended to read for a few minutes. There's so much packed into all 400 pages of this book and yet I found myself wanting more. Not because the book was lacking, but because I fell so in love with the world, characters, writing, and the plot. It kept me so engaged and flowed like water, each page effortlessly blending into the next. I had so many questions that I actually got answers for and by the end, I was gasping for air and screaming about how I needed the sequel already! This is a debut that will sweep you off of your feet and take you for an emotional ride, but you'll enjoy every second of it and beg for more.
Plot:
A lot of the time with first books (Wicked Saints is book one in a trilogy!!!) you can really tell that it's, well, book one. Does that make sense? It's clearly a setup book that just info dumps and introduces you to the world and the characters and most definitely sets the stage for the sequel. But with Wicked Saints, not only does it not feel like a debut, but it also feels like it's a book in the middle of a series. Everything is so well fleshed out and the story was so engaging and honestly very stressful at times! The story kicks off with a bang and doesn't stop until the final page and I was completely and totally hooked. You learn about clerics and blood mages and that the gods that Nadya can speak to (she can speak with all of them, by the way) and you find out that they've been completely shut out in Tranavia. One of my favorite things about this story is the religious aspects of it, believe it or not. There's a big overall discussion about beliefs, who is "right or wrong," and both Nadya and Malachiasz are so set in their ways of thinking that they butt heads quite frequently. They each have their own reasons for why they believe the way that they do and while both sides are incredibly compelling, there's this overall sense of wrong that you can feel when it comes to anything to do with the gods. You want to believe that both Nadya and Malachiasz are "right" but there's this looming sense of wrongness that you can't exactly place but it keeps you going, keeps you turning the page to find out more. That's the sign of a good book for me as a reader, when I'm reading and I find myself getting so deep into the story that I keep wanting more and before I know it, I've accidentally read half of the book when I only intended to read for a few minutes. There's so much packed into all 400 pages of this book and yet I found myself wanting more. Not because the book was lacking, but because I fell so in love with the world, characters, writing, and the plot. It kept me so engaged and flowed like water, each page effortlessly blending into the next. I had so many questions that I actually got answers for and by the end, I was gasping for air and screaming about how I needed the sequel already! This is a debut that will sweep you off of your feet and take you for an emotional ride, but you'll enjoy every second of it and beg for more.
Characters:
Before I jump into gushing about how much I love these monstrous children, I want to include a handy pronunciation guide for certain things within Wicked Saints! Hopefully, this saves you a bit of embarrassment when you're pronouncing Malachiasz as Ma-lah-key-az or Ma-lah-kai-az and Parijahan as Par-ee-john, Parisian, or eventually Parmesan because you're frustrated with yourself for not being able to pronounce any names properly.
Nadya, my darling cleric and one of the main characters in Wicked Saints, is one of my all-time favorite characters in any book I've ever read. She's so strong, both with her abilities and her personal strength as a person, and I loved following her story. From the beginning where she's in a monastary to the end where...well...spoilers but let's just say she has such an incredible character growth throughout the book that I just cannot stop thinking about. Nadya is so set in her ways because it's all she knows and she's determined to please her gods, the ones that give her power. She goes through so many ups and downs and finds out things that do cause her faith to waver and she questions all she thought she knew. But by the end? She finds her strength and absolutely shines and I didn't think it was possible but I fell in love with her even more.
Malachiasz, oh sweet monster child. He's a blood mage from Tranavia with a seriously messed up past. Like Nadya, he has some pretty insane character development and the way he was written was just so...wow. You can't help but want to love him and side with him and really just help him in every way possible. But dang, boy.
And finally, we come to Serefin, my drunk son who just needs a hug. You get an idea of who he is and form an opinion fairly early on in the book, and my personal opinion was Serefin bad. But the more you read and the more you discover about him and what's going on within Tranavia, you realize that he's actually a cinnamon roll who is caught in the middle of some pretty awful stuff. Like, no wonder he's drunk all the time holy crap what is going on. Again, amazing character development and I really think that, while I love Malachiasz, that Serefin and Nadya have the best storyline and growth throughout Wicked Saints.
To sum this up, all of the main characters in this book are incredible and show huge (and super important) growth and why are they not real people I just want to hug Serefin please. As far as the side characters (Ostyia is my queen and I'm gonna need an entire book just about her please and thank you) go, they were all equally as important and impactful as the three main characters in this book. These are definitely not one-shot side characters that you'll end up forgetting after you've been introduced to them! I just cannot stop praising Emily A. Duncan for creating each and every one of these amazing characters because they genuinely feel like they could be real people and it warms my soul to imagine that. Well...it might not end well but at least I could give them all a hug, right?
Writing:
This book is goth AF, as the kids would say. Wicked Saints is dark, gritty, and so very bloody in the best way possible. Emily's writing has a way of capturing your attention and not letting you go until the very last page. Blood magic? Probably, but I'll let her work her magic on me any day. Below, you'll find some of my favorite quotes from Wicked Saints:
"In Tranavia, there was always another monster around the corner waiting to devour you."
"She didn't want to be this close to him but if she was going to get out of this alive she was going to need a monster who knew how to fight monsters."
"Monsters are seen as an ideal because monsters are powerful, more than human."
"She didn't want to be this close to him but if she was going to get out of this alive she was going to need a monster who knew how to fight monsters."
"Monsters are seen as an ideal because monsters are powerful, more than human."
"We're all monsters, Nadya. Some of us just hide it better than others."
"Dazzle the monsters, Nadya."
"A witch is just a girl who has realized her power is her own."
"Dazzle the monsters, Nadya."
"A witch is just a girl who has realized her power is her own."
"The girl, the monster, and the prince."
"Once there was a boy who was shattered into pieces and put back together in the shape of a monster. Once there was a boy who clutched at the remnants of what he had left as it fell through his fingers. Once there was a boy who destroyed what little there was remaining because it wasn't enough. The boy was gone. The monster had swallowed the heart that beat in his chest. He let the darkness take him."
"Once there was a boy who was shattered into pieces and put back together in the shape of a monster. Once there was a boy who clutched at the remnants of what he had left as it fell through his fingers. Once there was a boy who destroyed what little there was remaining because it wasn't enough. The boy was gone. The monster had swallowed the heart that beat in his chest. He let the darkness take him."
Did I mention that Wicked Saints is dark? The writing in this book made me feel like I should be reading with the lights off by candlelight. Emily A. Duncan's writing comes across like she's been doing this for years and years and will absolutely have you hooked from the very first page. It's nothing short of magical and is so easy to get lost in that you'll never want to stop reading. There were so many times while I was reading that I just sighed and smiled out of pure love for how absolutely incredible and unique this whole book is.
This review was probably more of a gush about how much I loved every aspect of this book, but for a short and sweet "technical" review, Wicked Saints has it all. Addictive writing, a plot that keeps you on your toes and will likely have you screaming, and characters that are all so flawed but are really trying their best. This is a debut that you do not want to miss and I can say with 100% certainty that the hype around it is absolutely real.
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Excerpt from Wicked Saints
N A D E 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 seconds 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 refused to talk about them. The recorded histories never spoke of clerics who could hear more than one god. That Nadya communed 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 impossible to forget just who had chosen her for this fate: Marzenya, 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 figures 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 tightened, 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 became 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 silently 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 glowing 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 anything.
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, thankfully 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 communicate 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 assassin 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.
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About the Author:
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._________________________________________________________________________________
And with that, my review of Wicked Saints is finally out in the world! Thank you so much to Wednesday Books for inviting me to take part in this tour. It was an absolute honor to receive an ARC of Wicked Saints to review and I'm so glad that I can finally gush about how much I loved this book. If you've read Wicked Saints, I would love to know what you thought of it! If you haven't, I highly encourage you to pre-order it or go pick it up on release day, which is April 2nd! Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you in the next chapter!
