Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

Over these past few weeks, I have been craving a dark fantasy novel, and boy oh boy, Wicked Saints definitely fixed that craving! Thanks to Raincoast Books for including me in their blog tour for this novel, I’m so fortunate to be a part of it!

Flavia @ Flavia The Bibliophile
Joe @ Storeys of Stories
Katelin @ Pretty Little Library
Shanah @ Bionic Bookworm
Christine @ Padfoots Library
Carly @Beauty & Her Books
Rachel @ Model Who’s Read
Joyce @ The Beachy Reader
Wendy @ Cupcake and a Latte

Synopsis (Goodreads.com):

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 was so dark and bloody and… great! It started off with a BANG, and the story took off from there!

The magic system and world building were my favourite parts of this book. I am always fascinated by fantasies that focus around blood magic, as I think it is a very interesting concept. And while at times I thought that it was a bit graphic and gruesome, those factors did not impact my overall enjoyment of the story. Emily wrote the magic system in the book so well, and I really enjoyed it. I also loved the world building in this novel. I enjoyed going to all of the different towns/cities in this novel, and thought that there were really interesting to read. It was very easy to visualize the different places and scenes in this novel, and sometimes I have a hard time doing that in other fantasy books.

While reading this, I could not believe that this was Emily’s debut full-length novel (and she wrote while in grad-school!!). The book was written like a seasoned pro, and some of the effortless writing that is showcased in this book makes Emily easy to place among some of the great fantasy writers in the YA spectrum.

One thing that I did not love about this novel were the characters. As other reviewers have said, you either love or hate the characters in this novel. And sadly, I didn’t really like them. I didn’t feel any sort of connection to any of the characters, and while they go through a lot in this book, I felt that they could have developed a tad more. Since characters are very important to me when reading a novel, my overall experience of reading the book was definitely tainted because of them. However, a lot of other bloggers on this tour loved the characters, so it’s definitely personal preference!

Another thing about this book that I didn’t appreciate was the use of words in another language. I definitely understand why they were included, but I think that it would have been useful if there was a small dictionary in the front of the book for readers to reference while reading this novel.

If you are a lover of fantasy, I highly recommend that you read this book! I think that this will be the next huge fantasy novel, and I can’t wait to hear other peoples opinions on it! Overall, I gave it 3.75/5 stars.

Thanks again to Raincoast Books for selecting me to participate in the blog tour! Please check out all of the other stops on the tour, by clicking on the blogs mentioned above.

Good Night Book Owls!