“We’re all monsters, Nadya, some of us just hide it better than others.”
A brutal, dark and blood-lust gothic novel with unpredictabilities as its core theme, Wicked Saints is that feel-good novel that will destroy you but will have you adoring it and wanting more.
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“The girl, the monster, and the prince”
Nadeshda Lapteva (the girl) – A young cleric raised in a monastery high up in the mountains with the power to talk to Gods who whisper spells in her head allowing her to access powers strong enough to put an end to the century-old holy war between the two countries – Kalyazin and Tranavia. She is the only hope left for her people to not only restore the faith of the Gods but bring them back into power.
But are the Gods really the only ones giving her the power she possesses..
Malachiasz Czechowicz (the monster) – A blood mage with nothing to speak for but his name. He is the epitome of evil – an embodiment of darkness. Don’t be fooled by his pale, tortured eyes and devastatingly charming smile – this boy has a lot of lies hidden up his sleeves.
But is he actually just a man wanting peace or something more horrifying than we can imagine…
Serefin Meleski (the prince) – The youngest and most powerful mage of his time and the next in line to acquire the throne. But with a jealous father hell-bent on making sure no one can contest his power, even if it means assassinating his own son, and choosing a wife for himself – things are bound to get very interesting for this charming boy.
But what is that he truly wants…
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When their paths entwine with one another in this shadowy world, blood will be spilled. Beauty and brutality will meet. The balance between light and dark will tip the scales. They will each find answers in figuring out who they are and what they are meant for – even if it means straying away from the path they have been taught to take – and discover the greater power that lies within them.
This beautifully blood-drenched fairy tale will sink its claws into you, never letting you go until you’ve turned the last page.
Category Archives: Fantasy
The Beckoning Shadow by Katharyn Blair
“I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.”
Vesper Montgomery has run away from her home and her family, because she is a monster, or more specifically, an oddity – a human with magic. Having caused enough damage to the people she’s loved her entire life, she knows she is better off a lone wolf. Her rules are simple – don’t trust anyone, don’t get too close to anyone, and do not attract the attention of Wardens — oddities who strive to protect baselines a.k.a humans without magic from any dangerous oddity. And since she’s a Harbinger — an oddity who can make someone’s worst fear come true — she is basically number one on their hit list, especially since she, herself has minimum control over her power.
When she comes upon the Tournament of the Unraveling, Vesper believes that this is her chance to fix the mistake she made two years ago. What starts off as a fight to redeem herself, slowly turns into figuring out the mysterious death of an Oddity, and also how monstrous one can become to save the ones they love, and if it’ll even be worth it in the end.
More than the plot, it’s really the character development that makes the book an interesting read. All characters in this book have a painful and heavy past that they are all trying to escape. And it
is this pain and grief that binds the characters to one another, allowing readers to see how far they come from the first time we see them…
Although the plot isn’t completely new, it still works wonders in captivating a reader’s attention – with its solid writing, evolving characters, and hard-core fight scenes – Katharyn Blair has you hooked. A must-read for fans of The Young Elites and Fight Club.
The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman
The town of Four Paths is cursed. Hundreds of years ago, the four founders of the town fought a monster and used the powers they bargained away from it to lock the creature in the Gray, a dead version of the town trapped in the time of the Gray’s creation. Now, the descendants of the four founding families use the powers passed down to them to defend Four Paths still.
Justin’s family, the Hawthorne’s have been the most powerful family in Four Paths for years. His mother, the town sheriff, rules Four Paths and the other Founding Families, and expects her children to follow in her footsteps. But while his sister can read people’s futures in the Deck of Omens passed down from the Founders, Justin has proved himself completely powerless. And in a town where being a Founder with power makes you all but a king, and being one without a pariah, Justin’s family has determined to fake his power until he can be shipped off to college.
Harper Carlisle is a pariah. On the day she performed the ceremony in which she was supposed to gain her powers and take her place among a family of Founders, she was trapped in the Gray. When she emerged from the Gray a few days later it was without power, and without her arm. Sheriff Hawthorne decided to cut her out, and her family allowed it, and worse, her best friend, Justin Hawthorne abandoned her. Now, Harper would do anything to get revenge on the Hawthornes and even more, to get even a scrap of the power that was stolen from her in the Gray, a scrap of the power she deserves.
Violet Saunders is still grieving from the death of her older sister when her mother uproots their lives to move to her childhood home of Four Paths to take care of her own sister, who suffers from early onset dementia. She’s expecting old friends of her mother and that small town drama from the movies, but what she finds is much, much weirder. And scarier. Definitely scarier. But also small town drama. And, you know, an ancient evil nobody knows much about but still kills people in creepy ways if they wander into its territory.
The Devouring Gray is wholly original and darkly fascinating. I spent half of it turning my audiobook off and on because parts of it are just that creepy and the other half glaring at anyone who tried to talk to me because I didn’t want to miss a second. It is that one horror story in a hundred where you actually like the characters and agree with their decisions, the one fantasy novel with a story original enough that you don’t actually know what is going to happen. It also has love interests you can get behind and, yes, a love triangle— but not the one you expect! It’s amazing, and I promise you’ll love it!
A Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson
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“For these were not ordinary books the libraries kept. They were knowledge, given life. Wisdom, given voice. They sang when starlight streamed through the library’s windows. They felt pain and suffered heartbreak. Sometimes they were sinister, grotesque–but so was the world outside. And that made the world no less worth fighting for, because wherever there was darkness, there was also so much light.”
MAGICAL. BOOKS. Has there ever been a more perfect book for bookworms?
What can be better than being raised in a library – in a world full of magic and sorcerers. A world where books (or grimoires ), not only talk and sing but can also turn into demons or as they’re fondly called Maleficits. And Elizabeth – our clumsy, yet fiercely brave protagonist – lives just that life (lucky her).
Elizabeth just wants to become a warden in the library where she’s lived her whole life and stay as far away from sorcery as she can. But when the director is killed and she’s accused of being behind it, despite being guiltless, she is sent off to the city where an act of heroism (or so she thought) by her, spins her into a web of dark magic, demons, and a mission with her world and everyone she loves at stake. Add in a handsome, witty sorcerer named Nathaniel Thorn and his yellow-eyed servant/sidekick/best friend Silas – it’s a rollercoaster ride full of romance, humor, and a whole lot of trying to keep out and away from magic and trouble, but failing miserably at it.
Albeit a slow start, the book quickly has you hooked. The writing is top-notch. The plot, the wonderfully developed characters, the beautiful and magical illustrations – will have you wanting to jump into the book then and there. This book is a must read for fans of Harry Potter and Septimus Heap .
The Red Scrolls of Magic by Cassandra Clare
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If you’re a fan of Cassandra Clare or love romance and Europe and demons, you’ll love The Red Scrolls of Magic.
When Magnus Bane and his boyfriend, the heroic Alex Lightwood, go on a vacation across Europe, they encounter a cult known as the Crimson Hand, which was founded by Magnus or the Great Poison. A new leader threatens to summon Lucifer’s right hand man, Asmodeus. Also known as Magnus’s father. They go across Europe to stop them, and to prove Magnus’s innocence.
Lady Smoke by Laura Sebastian
We left Theo on a pirate ship sailing away from Astrea. Over the course of Ash Princess she had managed to transform herself from a hostage to a queen. She lied and spyed and manipulated until she had won back a sliver of power she needed (she really is the ultimate slytherin). Now the Thane is dead, Soren is captured and Theo is safely escaped from the Kaiser; but those victories came with a cost. Elpis is dead, Cress survived— and may have gained dangerous powers nobody thought possible for a Kalovaxian, meanwhile, Blaise’s gift is growing harder to control as he tips closer to mine-madness and Dragonsbane isn’t all that she seems.
Now Theo is in a new kind of game and her allies are just as few as they were in Astrea, despite Dragonsbane’s ‘loyalty.’ The pirate has different ideas on how to take back Astrea and now Theo is being taken to a foreign court to find a husband with a big enough army to take back her kingdom.
I loved Theo in Ash Princess for her intelligence and her adaptability. She is a genuinly good person, but she’s willing to do what it takes to survive and take back her kingdom. She loves Blaise and Soren, but she won’t put them first if doing so endangers her larger goals. She knows how people work and how to use that knowledge to her advantage.
In Lady Smoke I think she loses a lot of that. I still liked the book, but I thought that Theo’s character deteriorates somewhat. Part of this is attributed to Theo’s new situation, her diffuculty in adapting to a new game in a new place that she doesn’t fully understand, but it is more than that. I was disapointed by how much stress was put on the love triange as a main plot point rather than a supporting and driving factor as it had been in the previous book. I felt this turned a strong, smart women into a lovestruck girl who keeps making stupid descisions that seem incongrous with the character in the first book.
Still, that said, overall it was a good book. It had strong worldbuilding and set up the third book quite well. There were enough surprising twists that I was kept engaged. I’ll definitely buy Ember Queen to find out how the trilogy ends.
The Wicked King by Holly Black
Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince was a masterpiece of magic and intrigue that followed Jude, adopted daughter of a Faerie general, as she fought for power in the Faerie court. In the Wicked King, Jude has the power she always wanted as seneschal and handler of the newly crowned King Cardan, and is struggling to hang onto it.
Before he became king, Cardan swore to obey Jude’s every command for the next year, but with over half that time gone, Jude is scrambling for a way to extend her power over the unpredictable young king. If she doesn’t manage to, then her little brother Oak will be forced to take the throne and she will lose all the influence and control that she fought so hard for. On her side is the Shadow Court, a dangerous team of spies and assassins who work for her and the king, but even their loyalty is only as valuable as the highest bidder is willing to pay for it.
They say old friends make the worst of enemies and between the adopted father she betrayed, the boy who betrayed her and her twin sister, Taryn, Jude has a surplus of foes and is perilously short on allies. If she wants to stay alive— and stay in power— Jude will have to be more clever and more ruthless than ever before.
Archenemies by Marissa Meyers
In Renegades Marissa Meyer blurred the lines between hero and villain as Nova began to question whether the Renegades, an organization of superheroes that run her city, are truly as bad as she has always been told. In Archenemies Nova faces a different internal struggle. After the reveal of Agent N, and the council’s plan to destroy the powers of all prodigies that oppose them, she has made her peace with taking down the organization; to her mind it is a necessity. The problem isn’t the Renegades, it’s her teammates. The problem is Adrian Everheart, son of Captain Chromium and the Dread Warden, her best friend and crush that won’t quite believe that Nova’s secret anarchist alter-ego, Nightmare, is truly dead, despite the stunt she pulled off with Ingrid to convince the Renegades. The problem is Ruby and Oscar, her friends who are, despite their proud status as Renegades actually really good people, and the worst problem of all may be her last teammate, Dana, who is becoming increasingly suspicious of Nova.
The stakes have risen for everyone as time grows short and new dangers arise from every side. Nova must find— and steal— Ace’s helmet from the Renegades before the superheroes catch up, while Adrian struggles with keeping his own secret identity— the Sentinel— hidden from his family, and from Nova. Archenemies is an epic sequel that will take you on a wild ride of secrets, betrayal and action and leave you wanting more!
The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi
Six of Crows was a brilliant heist-adventure set in an original world with compelling, 3 dimensional characters. Gilded Wolves is… not. I was excited when I picked up Gilded Wolves, it sounded interesting and unique and as an added bonus it has a gorgeous cover and an intriguing title! I was, sadly, disappointed. Gilded Wolves turned out to be a total rip off of Leigh Bardugo’s book, that, to make matters worse lacks the character and plot depth that sets Six of Crows apart.
While the world was interesting, the author didn’t take the time to develop it enough to give the reader an understanding of its culture and more importantly, although multiple main characters have magic, she neglects to tell us how it works or even the limits of what they can do. The characters too were somewhat lacking. Chokshi’s strategy seemed to be to simply dump their backstory in at some point without making it an organic thing or showing how it shapes the characters in the present and influences their actions. Lastly, the plot structure was unfortunately predictable: the group would be in danger, they’re about to die, the same two characters (who later develop a forced and rushed love interest) solve the problem using math and some random fact that one of them somehow knows.
Perhaps I am being overly harsh, but it is my opinion that if a book is that similar to another book (especially if it is marketed to the same demographic) then it has to be at least as good as the one it is ripping off. Gilded Wolves may be a good fit for younger readers who aren’t quite ready for Six of Crows, but I would not recommend it to people who have already read the aforementioned book, since as a fan of Leigh Bardugo’s book I found myself spending the entire time reading Gilded Wolves measuring it up to Six of Crows and finding it lacking.
Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria
Beneath the Citadel, by Destiny Soria, is an impeccably crafted fantasy novel with everything planned out perfectly. There are plot twists and moments of relief, and this story makes you feel like you’re with the characters in the citadel.
Beneath the Citadel tells about four teenagers who live in a place ruled by rooks and seers; sentients and diviners. Nothing is private, and it seems as if everyone’s future is written in prophecies. But the citadel has secrets of its own: what’s beneath the citadel. Something so unimaginable. These four friends are the last of the rebels, trying to destroy the corrupt government. Will the citadel’s secret ruin or help their plan?
Destiny Soria wrote a truly amazing novel here. I recommend this to any fantasy lover, or anyone who wants to read a book impossible to put down. It is thoroughly engulfing from the first page to the last, and makes you want more. I cannot begin to describe how interesting this story is. There’s nothing else like it and it’s bound to become huge like Harry Potter or Red Queen. I hope there is a sequel!