I've seen this book and its follow-up Ruthless Gods at work often but until I saw that OwlCrate was doing a special edition of the finale to the Something Dark and Holy trilogy, Blessed Monsters, which comes out April 6, I didn't really feel drawn to read this. But upon asking my fellow booksellers in our FB group what they thought and getting pretty good reviews, and seeing how beautiful the special edition was I decided to check it out. At work I picked this up and read the first page, and then the second...and wanted to read more. And now here I am telling you about it...And feeling so many things...
I will admit to falling down the rabbit hole of YouTube BookTube reviews when I went looking for pronunciation help and some of the reviews were saying they didn't like this or it was "meh" and I was a little worried...But I kept going because I was enjoying it and to each his own right? And now that I am done I am in a place I don't often find myself...shocked at the twists and ending...truly not having seen it coming...and so glad I started this trilogy....
Before I go any further, as much as I liked this and will happily read the rest of the trilogy, and yes I ordered the special edition...and yes it means my set won't match, but I am ok'ish with that, I must give a content warning...
There is a lot of blood in this book..one of the magic types is powered by it...and so there is imagery that could be very hard and painful if self-harm is a trigger for you. Those using blood to power their magic cut themselves. No story is worth harming yourself to read and so if this will be too much for you, is a trigger, it is ok to skip this book...
The basics...
Set in a world where there are two main countries and they are at war, have been for a very long time. Kalyazin and Tranavia. The war is a holy war, a war about which magic system is the best and if their are gods and if they are welcome...
There are three main characters
Nadya, the last cleric from a country called Kalyazin. She has grown up in a monastery where she has been groomed for fighting the heretics who disavowed the gods, gods who speak to her and it's thought they give her her magic ability.
Serefin, the high prince of Tranavia, a very powerful blood mage, who has been on the front lines of the war for so long, for too long and since he was too young to have been there. He is the son of the king and there is a lot of tension between father and soon.
Malachiasz (pronounced ma-lacki-ash) who is a boy who says he wants to end the war and is hiding something that to Nadya feels so dark and scary. But she is drawn to him anyway and it makes her question everything she thinks she knows...
But the three seem to have a common desire to end the war and save their people so maybe they will be on the same side. Or maybe nothing is what it looks like...but that remains to be seen...
I didn't think I would love this as much as I did...it is a Slavic fairytale (monster story) and some of the words are just impossible to pronounce and it took some time to get a grove but once I did I fell into the tale Emily was spinning...it is dark and scary and bloody and beautiful and painful and just so much more than I expected. And as I said, I didn't see the ending coming...and it hurt, in the hurting way that makes you want to thank the author and keep reading...
Going forward I hope we get more of the 4 side characters
Serefin's two companions, Ostyia and Kacper
and
Malachiasz's (and then I guess Nadya's) two, Parijahan and Rashid
I found them all really enjoyable, and with two of them being strong female characters, Ostyia and Parijahan and two being queer, Ostyia and Rashid, there is a lot of room to expand and explore them and I hope that happens...
Ok, I think that covers it....I am not sure if I want to give this 4 or 5 stars, I really, really enjoyed this..but it isn't perfect...and since there are no partial stars on GoodReads I tend to lean towards giving books the higher stars when I am stuck in the middle...I was going to go with 4 until that ending and for the surprise factor of it I am thinking I will go to 5*.....
(Finished March 6, 2021)
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