Wicked Saints (Something Dark and Holy #1) by Emily A. Duncan

Title: Wicked Saints

Author: Emily A. Duncan

Series: Something Dark and Holy

Page count: 385

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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…”

Goodreads blurb

This book definitely has a very gothic aesthetic to it, especially given how much the word ‘blood’ and ‘vultures’ is used in it. Seriously, it rivals the number of times SJM uses ‘mate’ in ACOTAR. The entire book had a very dark setting to it, but the two kingdoms we visit are dark for different reasons. Kalyzazin has a kind of winter/snow-covered, mountainous setting while Tranavia gives off more of a creepy bog, river vibe. And yes, I triple checked to make sure I spelled that correctly, which was the other thing. It kind of took me out of the story every time I had to stop and figure out how to pronounce every. single. name. There was one character named Anna and she left about 1/3 of the way through the book. She was the only one who’s name I was confident in pronunciation.

Blood wasn’t a thing to be made light of, not in these times.”

Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan

With the mention of names, let’s get into the characters. Malachiesz (again, triple checked to make sure I spelled that correctly) and Nadya are definitely the less toxic version of Darklina. *spoilers for both Wicked Saints and Grisha trilogy* I mean, it’s still bad because he does manipulate her in a major way, but at least he isn’t actively trying to enslave her and doesn’t try to kill any of her friends or family (I’m not including Serefin in this because she barely knew him at the time). Which leads me to Serefin. He seems like the Sev (see Heart of Flames review here and Crown of Feathers here) version of this story. His arc seems to be going from a general to a king, thus a transition from being blood thirsty warrior to someone who tries to take the high, more peaceful route to solve things. On a whole, both him and Nadya don’t really make a lot of decisions on their own, but rather just have things happen to them. The only actual choice Nadya made was to leave Kalyzin and travel to Tranavia while Serefin’s only choice was…..idk, maybe not to follow Nadya after capturing the monastery?

Some Gods require blood.”

Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan

All in all, the book was pretty good and interesting. Definitely extremely plot driven instead of character driven. Once you get pass the names (seriously, can we get a pronunciation guide?) the book really flies by. One thing I would like to see more of in Ruthless Gods is the history of this world. There were some glimpses of it, but I think it could play a bigger role in the next two books.

I’m going to save this world from monsters like you.”

Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan

What did you think of it? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!