Wicked Saints

 Special thanks to NetGalley for a copy.

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Wicked Saints is the first in the Something Dark and Holy series by Emily Duncan. She has her worked published in Crows on Heartstrings: An Anthology of Doomed Love Stories but Wicked Saints is her first novel. Published by Wednesday Books, it was released on April 2nd.

Wicked Saints follows Nadya, a girl who can speak to the gods and use their power, as she teams up with two refugees and a boy who everyone calls a monster in order to end a three centuries-long holy war by assassinating the enemy king. Meanwhile, the High Prince Serefine is called home from the war to choose a wife and possibly die. This book is marketed as an instant New York Times bestseller, and is often described as a Six of Crows type story.

This book . . . frustrated me. I liked most of the characters, the concept was good, and the idea of the blood magic and the Vultures, especially, intrigued me. But there was a lot that made this book not as great as I was hoping. First of all, trigger warnings for self harm. Seriously, blood magic requires blood and the "best" way to do that is self harm. Also, there is a lot of blood, as noted by other reviewers. There are some points where I wondered why the characters weren't suffering from more serious side effects.

The fact everything was based on Eastern European culture was another great aspect. Sure, it made the language and names difficult for me to pronounce, but I love seeing fantasy worlds that aren't the typical Tolkien-style. The gods and religious beliefs and practices, the political design, it all felt rooted in something, even if I'm not overly familiar with its origins.

Secondly, and this may be my biggest issue, the pacing felt off. There are far to many characters introduced and then discarded in just the opening chapters, it was difficult knowing who I needed to focus on and remember and who I could simply move past. The story takes its time actually getting to the conflict and plot where it's more than characters talking about what they need to do and finally dealing with trying to carry out their assassination attempt, but once they start actually following their plan, things just fall into place so quickly and easily. I expected more struggle and more danger. More deception and puzzles to earn it the "like Six of Crows" description I kept hearing. But it never came. There is also a lot of important character development that is given far to quickly and easily straight from the characters who should want to keep that information hidden. Mal tells Nadya what and-- mostly-- who he is without hesitation just shortly after meeting her. Why? Shouldn't that be a bigger reveal down the road? Also, there is so much talk of gods and oppression and freedom that it feels like Duncan wants to make some kind of commentary on it, but there is never any new ideas introduced and the two characters just talk circles around each other throughout the entire book.

Finally, I was so annoyed with the romance angle. It's not well written and left me more angry than anything else. Nadya gets mad at Mal, he says or does something to explain his actions, she lets it go and falls head over heels for him, kissing him. The entire time she's thinking "I shouldn't do this but I'm going to do it anyway." I get she's never been romantically interested in anyone before and is inexperienced but the rest of the social situations she gets into, she's capable of handling herself so why does she do this? Also the make out/romance scenes feel really amateur-ish, like Duncan didn't know how to write them and made it seem like a T rated fanfic smut. It's not interesting, it doesn't really do anything to further the story--especially towards the ending--and it feels slapped on to a political drama. I'll admit I was happy that the "love" element didn't stop the outcome from happening and it didn't turn people away from making wrong decisions, but most of it felt unnecessary.

I wanted to like this book, and there are some points that I really do. Who was trying to combine the two systems of magic, the Vultures are terrifying and fascinating, and the few fights we see are decent, though the last one is a bit underwhelming. And the idea that the gods aren't divine beings but possibly something else with their own agendas is intriguing. Unfortunately, i don't think this book was well executed. The characters didn't have as much depth as I would like, the pacing wasn't good, the conflict didn't feel strong enough. Maybe it has to do with the fact I read an ARC and not the finished copy but I'm not really dying to get a hold of a copy in order to find out.

Overall, two and a half to three stars. Not terrible but not great; pretty disappointing.

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