Thank you NetGalley and Zando Projects for the ARC of Scorched Grace -- a book about faith, redemption, and staying true to ones self. I liked the character development and writing, however I felt the mystery to be less interesting than Sister Holiday's backstory, which, for a book about multiple murders, was a bit disappointing. Despite this, I do look forward to any future Sister Holiday mysteries.

I did not finish this book. I just could not get into it and was really struggling to read it. I did not look forward to picking it up, and it was taking the joy out of reading.

I really wanted to like this book, but I struggled with the writing. I thought Sister Holliday was an interesting character, but she needed some supporting characters with more depth. Her amateur detective skills were above average. The flashbacks were a bit jarring in trying to figure out where they started and ended, though I will look forward to the next in the series. Thanks to #Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Scorched Grace is dark, funny, touching story about starting over and learning to forgive yourself. It’s about reinventing yourself without losing yourself. And yeah, it’s also an arson/murder mystery. But the thrilling mystery at the heart of this novel is just a vehicle for exploring Sister Holiday’s journey to find herself and heal from her troubled past, all while flipping the hardboiled/noir genre on its head. Maintaining the hilariously serious voice of the detective narrator, Sister Holiday is the type of complex protagonist you can’t help but love and want to learn more about. She almost reminds me of Detective Benoit Blanc from Knives Out if he was, you know, a heavily tattooed nun.

My only real critique is that the side characters, while each deeply fascinating individuals, weren’t explored as deeply as I would’ve hoped. This worked well in terms of piquing intrigue without giving too much away—a great technique for writing red herrings—but left me wanting more. I’m assuming this is only the first of a series of Sistery Holiday mysteries, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gillian Flynn Books for providing me with an ARC of Scorched Grace in exchange for an honest review.

Picture a woman covered in tattoos with a gold tooth and candy red lipstick smoking a cheap cigarette. She is either playing the guitar or just got out of a bar fight and likely has a black cat named Voodoo following her around. Do you have the image in your head yet?

Did you picture a Nun??!! If you didn’t, let me introduce you to Sister Holiday… She’s no Sister Mary Clarence (legendary fictitious nun from Sister Act) but she’s a close second!

When mysterious fires break out at Saint Sebastian’s School, Sister Holiday uses her sleuthing skills to crack the case, despite all signs of arson pointing to her. During her investigation, the reader is intermittently introduced to Sister Holiday’s former life and we learn that no matter how far we try to out run our past, it will always catch up to us!

The fires in this mystery/crime thriller set in New Orleans are not the only heat on this book. Scorched Grace burns with police brutality, LGBTQ injustice, infamous New Orleans weather trauma, and more. Margot writes these themes with grace, leaving the reader anticipating the next book in this heated and bold series!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley fot letting me read this ahead of publication.
Let me start by saying that this was one of my most anticipated releases for this year: punk lesbian nun that solves crimes ticks all the boxes I never knew I had. So needless to say I went in with really high expectations. Maybe too high. And maybe that's what went wrong between me and Scorched Grace.
I think that my biggest problem with this book was the dialogue. It really felt flat and even cringey at some points. The plot itself ended up being just fine for me, by which I mean nothing to be too excited about. While I have no trouble believing that any protagonist - with not much of detective qualifications - in any book would just go ahead and solve a crime, the way that it was done here really made me think "Oh this person doesn't know what they're doing".
As far as queer rep goes I can't say that there's much of it, other than what's said in the premise. We know going in that she's a lesbian but not much of that is shown and it's definitely not a big part of the story, which can be ok in itself but it was also a big reason why I wanted to read this book to begin with so I was expecting more to come of it.
The ending was a bit mediocre but maybe it was because I was done with it at that point.
All that being said I really wouldn't actually discourage anyone from reading this because I know that many many people woud love it and be entertained by it.

This was such a fun read! Reading about a tattooed, smoking queer nun is all iv ever needed in life.

This was an interesting premise with some interesting characters, but it all felt rushed and the first person narrative was completely over expansive.

The writing is very detailed, but the pacing feels off, even in singular sentences. It all feels a bit removed from the reader and I found it difficult to connect with.

It had a lot of promise, but it definitely fell a bit flat.

The cover of this book pretty much is an indicator of how intense this book is. While the main character is a nun, fire or heat also seems to function as a character. The mystery of why a church would be the target of an arsonist is at the center of the plot. There are plenty of suspects and interesting secondary characters in this book, enough to make it hard to put down. I ended up reading this book in just a few sittings. Well-written and intense, I enjoyed this book.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and Zando for providing me with an advanced copy of this book. This review reflects my honest opinion.

It took me a minute to fully warm up to this book, but that's sort of the point -- Sister Holiday isn't the easiest to be around, but she's a detective worth following and the NOLA setting is a total stunner. A bit more hard-boiled than I usually go for, but fantastic all the same.

what a fucking fantastic novel. catholicism is usually not open to nor accepting of queer and trans people & punk/alt folks, but margot douaihy changes that with an iconic queer, tatted up nun who isn’t afraid to say the word “fuck.” sister holiday smokes cigs, digs chicks, and is a total badass. when a fire claims the life of a student, sister holiday sets off to discover the reasons behind the arson and who is responsible. with new orleans as the backdrop, this incredibly fun and riveting novel explores the lives of queer people living in religious spaces, and how religion does not need to have institutions based in homophobia and transphobia. douaihy also expertly tackles issues with police, who don’t seem to want to help at all.

what a beautiful novel, is really all i can say. it was fun, well paced, and full of strong characters. sister holiday has an aesthetic like no other, and everything she does oozes badassery. if you like mysteries, murder, and complex relationships with religion, this book is for you. i loved it.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book. I had NO idea what to expect from a book about a queer nun solving crimes but it far exceeded my hopes. The writing was poetic without being obtuse, the pace was quick, and the plot was well developed. I really hope this ends up being a series, I already miss the characters.

"Sister Holiday, a chain-smoking, heavily tattooed, queer nun, puts her amateur sleuthing skills to the test in this "unique and confident" debut crime novel (Gillian Flynn).

When Saint Sebastian's School becomes the target of a shocking arson spree, the Sisters of the Sublime Blood and their surrounding New Orleans community are thrust into chaos.

Patience is a virtue, but punk rocker turned nun Sister Holiday isn't satisfied to just wait around for officials to return her home and sanctuary to its former peace, instead deciding to unveil the mysterious attacker herself. Her investigation leads her down a twisty path of suspicion and secrets, turning her against colleagues, students, and even fellow Sisters along the way. And to piece together the clues of this high-stakes mystery, she must at last reckon with the sins of her own past.

An exciting start to a bold series that breathes new life into the hard-boiled genre, Scorched Grace is a fast-paced and punchy whodunnit that will keep readers guessing until the very end."

A fascinating new series from Gillian Flynn's imprint. I mean she can't spend all day writing Miles Bron's death.

A nice mystery/thriller, told beautifully, about a tattooed and queer nun that finds herself tangled in some arsons at her convent. I really liked the queer representation intersected with her being catholic, her backstory and the general mystery up until the unexpected ending. Overall a very enjoyable read!

I loved this book so much! I hope this is the start of a new series! Punk-rock, queer nun, Sister Holiday, sets out to investigate arsons at the school where she teaches. She deals with past memories of trauma in her life that led her to becoming a nun. I really enjoyed this book by Margot Douaihy and this first novel from Gillian Flynn’s publication company. I was hooked from the start and devoured this in 2 days.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4. For a debut, the writing in Scorched Grace was incredible - it read much more like a seasoned author. I loved Sister Holiday and all of the juxtapositions in her personality with that of a traditional nun. There sometimes felt like there were too many flashback stories and it distracted a bit, but overall I really enjoyed it. I’d happily take more books with Sister Holiday at the helm.

I am simply obsessed. Sister Holiday is not only a badass, queer nun but I found myself crying over certain scenes from her past- her vulnerability, pain, regrets. No spoilers, I promise :) Thanks Netgalley & the publisher for the ARC, in exchange for an honest review.

I was awarded this ARC through the Publisher's Weekly Grab-A-Galley giveaway and accessed through Netgalley. I was interested in this title from the description: "Sister Holiday, a chain-smoking, heavily tattooed, queer nun, puts her amateur sleuthing skills to the test." I mean, how could you not be interested in that? This is a first-in-a-series title for Gillian Flynn Books at Zando Projects Publishing so you know it's going to go to some dark places, and it does. Sister Holiday investigates arson and murder at St. Sebastian's in New Orleans. This book has a heavy noir feel to it and Sister Holiday is about as hard-boiled as they come having been knocked around in the school of life. Plenty of quirky and unsavory characters to enjoy and as we learn more about Sister Holiday's back story, and the more heart-breaking the overall story becomes. I'm honestly not sure how this is going to continue as a series. There was a lot of back story in this first installment that perhaps you will need to know as the series continues? How does the author do that without becoming repetitive to those following every book. This is why I'm not a writer! :-) I had a couple of editorial quibbles too, one being a character with an episode of hypoglycemia who is administered insulin. I may be wrong but I think that is the exact wrong treatment for hypoglycemia and the character should have been killed off that way. I also did not care for how Sister Holiday's ex-lover that she obsessed over, dropped into the story at the end for no apparent reason other than to ratchet up more tension. It wasn't built up to at all so much so that I had to go back and reread to make sure I understood exactly what was going on! Overall this is a really good read and a great start to a character motivated series and I'm looking forward to more. I've heard that this title has already been acquired for TV by the same people that produced Station Eleven and The Lincoln Lawyer (the McConaughey film).

Scorched Grace was a perfectly fine read. Admittedly, since it was one of my most anticipated reads for 2023 (I mean, lesbian nun detective??), this makes it just the slightest bit disappointing, but on the whole I liked it, and that’s all I can really ask for from a book.

The story follows Sister Holiday who becomes witness to a murder (or, the outcome of such) and subsequent arson attack. Quickly, she finds herself drawn into finding the culprit of both, tangling herself up in school and church politics along the way.

I didn’t end up writing many notes while reading this one. As such, this probably won’t be the longest review. In fact, since I’m writing it months on from reading, I have to admit I don’t remember a whole lot about this book at all. Perhaps that’s my first point: it’s not so much forgettable as not entirely memorable. This sounds harsh, and may simply be a product of how many books I’ve read in between.

But while the plot itself might not be memorable, at least the general sense of the book is. It’s set in New Orleans, amidst sticky heat that all but drips off the page. It’s a very atmospheric book and you really feel as though you’re there alongside the characters. That’s what it does so well.

The characters, too, feel vibrant and real, Sister Holiday in particular. They’re compelling, so you want to read about them, and that’s mostly what drives the desire to discover the solution to the mystery. It’s more character-driven than plot-driven, which makes it a good thing that the characters are so engaging.

So, really, what made me rate this one 3 stars and not higher was that the writing felt a bit forced. It has a noir, or noir-esque, style to it, but at the same time, it felt like it was trying too hard to make it sound that way. I thought I might get used to it after a bit, but instead it just became more and more obvious to me the more I read. That and a confusing lack of motive (unless I missed something) were what let me down on this one.

However, this all being said, the usual applies: your mileage may vary, etc etc, it all comes down to personal taste. If this sounds good to you, I’d suggest you give it a try.

I really enjoyed the writing in this book. I thought that it was lyrical and insightful. I also liked the unique point of view of a severely traumatized queer nun, as that’s not something that I have ever had the pleasure of reading before. I did think the storyline and plot in general were a little underwhelming. Despite being interesting, I felt that the plot was lacking any serious surprises and parts of it, especially the ending, felt rushed and unfinished. Some of the characters felt a little underdeveloped. I really enjoyed the book despite those things though, and would definitely read from this author again!