WELCOME TO MY VERY FIRST BLOG TOUR!!
Thanks to Wednesday Books & Raincoast Books for providing me with a review copy in order to review, and take part in the blog tour, for Wicked Saints! I’m probably way more excited about this than I should be, but deal with it. Time to go off the rails!
WICKED SAINTS
by Emily A. Duncan
Wednesday Books
April 2, 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.
For those of you that went to see Avengers: Infinity War in the theatre, you know how when it ended everyone just mindlessly got up and shuffled to the exits, heads hung low, without saying a word? That’s kind of how I felt at the end of Wicked Saints. I was genuinely worried about the fate of these characters, and I feel like I had more questions at the end than I had before reading page 1. And, most importantly, I wanted more. Immediately.
The first thing that reached out and grabbed me was the characters. Scratch that. The first thing was the character names. A lot of them seemed like Russian names to me (though I’m certainly no expert on name etymology) and in the beginning, it slowed me down. Each time I met a new character, I’d have to stop reading and say, “Okay, how is my brain going to subvocalize this name over and over again for the next 300 pages or so?” Obviously, you don’t need to be correct in the pronunciation, but it needs to consistent and needs to flow from that point forward. This wasn’t a big deal, but it does tend to pull readers out of the story for a moment or two each time we meet another character with too many consonants in his or her name.
Beyond that, the characters are fantastic. A little whiny at times, but that seems to speak to their realism. These characters are flawed, and have a lot of mannerisms and habits to make me fall in love with them. At the same time, they also have hidden pasts and make occasional decisions that make me question why I like them, or if I should even like them at all.
And that right there is one of the running themes throughout. I couldn’t tell which characters I liked and or trusted. Each time I thought I knew, something would happen and I’d have to re-analyze all over again. Heck, I’ve finished the book and I’m still not sure about many of them. I have a feeling that this will continue deep into the series. Example: How am I feel about Malachiasz (yes, that’s a character’s name) right about now?
Watching these characters interact and show small glimpses of their desires and ambitions, only to act directly against those revelations, feels a lot like watching master chess players move pieces around a board. And just like that very scenario, my tiny brain doesn’t understand everything that’s going on, but I’m desperate to see one of the players raise a hand in victory.
And that doesn’t just apply to the characters. I’m the kind of reader that can often see plot twists coming. With this one, I wasn’t even close. Not once. It actually threw me off in the beginning. The story seemed to change directions a few times before it really got some traction and started moving. But once it did, look out! The gas pedal is stuck, the brake lines have been cut, and the steering wheel is gone.
Like I said earlier, I ended up with more questions than answers. That’s not to say you won’t have your questions answered. You absolutely will. Not all, but a lot of them. Let’s call it a bucket full of answers. But then you’ll look up as a dump truck’s worth of new questions land around you until you’re completely buried.
The good news is that this is book one of the Something Dark and Holy series, currently slated to be a trilogy. So please, Emily A. Duncan, if you’re reading this (and I know that you aren’t) please write fast. Because I can’t sleep!
Don’t forget to visit the rest of the stops on this blog tour:
MARCH 25
Flavia @ Flavia the Bibliophile
Joe @ Storeys of Stories
MARCH 26
Katelin @ Pretty Little Library
Shanah @ Bionic Bookworm
MARCH 27
Christine @ Padfoot’s Library
Carly @ Beauty & Her Books
MARCH 28
Rachel @ A Model Who’s Read
Joyce @ The Beachy Reader
MARCH 29
Wendy @ Cupcake and a Latte
Alyssa @ Reading Reading Reading
Fun fact about this post: My very first blog tour and I get to do it with my cousin, Shanah! Very appropriate since when it comes to this whole blogging thing, I pretty much just watch to see what she does and try to copy her. Poorly.
