I was really impressed with this sequel. To be honest, Wicked Saints left me feeling a little underwhelmed. Obviously, it intrigued me enough to want to pick up the sequel, but I didn’t have high hopes for Ruthless Gods going in. This is probably why it took me by surprise how much I enjoyed it. It was eclectic and intriguing. I found myself growing attached to the characters, a feeling I very much lacked while reading the first book. I was thoroughly entertained and, once I finally sat down to read this, I got through it really quickly. I’m excited to see where this story goes and will be anxiously awaiting book three!

Ruthless Gods is the sequel to one of my favourite books of 2019.
I'm going to start out by saying this was confusing as hell. I'm not sure if it was just the arc format or what but I didn't know who was saying what or doing what a lot of the time.
I stuck it out because I loooove these characters so much. Malachiasz is the villian we deserve.
I ended up giving this 3 stars, and I'm sooo curious to see how this series wraps up.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book, "Ruthless Gods" in exchange for an honest review. I have a love-hate relationship with both novels in this series so far. The world the author creates is vast and intriguing. Two countries divided and at war due to their beliefs. One believes in blood magic and the other believes in faith and the gods. But both the magic system and the religious aspects are vague and not well explained. Magic is so undefined that these scenes just seem to allow for anything to happen as long as it progresses the plot. Unfortunately there is not even a lot of plot progression in this second installment. "Ruthless Gods" offers solid political intrigue for the first quarter of the book but the next three hundred pages focus on following our band of characters on a journey where nothing much happens. There is so much repeated angst and inner turmoil that I was quickly annoyed and bored. Seriously almost word for word repeated inner monologues. The last part offers us a decent climax but again things are so vague and dreamlike that it unfolding twists don't have the impact that they should. There is a great group of characters here and that is honestly the crux of why I will follow this series through to completion. Nadya did have some 'too stupid to live' moments. I like Serephin the most but he was truly just wasted in this book. Something big must be aligning for him in the third installment. And honestly, no one in the book, or no one reading this book should be shocked by betrayals at this point.

Thank you so much St. Martin's press for the eARC of Ruthless Gods. Unfortunately, I have decided not to review this title due to my interest no longer being in this series. I look forward to working with you again in the future with another title.

Kind regards,

Brittney

Disclaimer: I received an arc copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

“ Nadya doesn’t trust her magic anymore. Serefin is fighting off a voice in his head that doesn’t belong to him. Malachiasz is at war with who--and what--he’s become.

As their group is continually torn apart, the girl, the prince, and the monster find their fates irrevocably intertwined. Their paths are being orchestrated by someone…or something. The voices that Serefin hears in the darkness, the ones that Nadya believes are her gods, the ones that Malachiasz is desperate to meet―those voices want a stake in the world, and they refuse to stay quiet any longer.

In her dramatic follow-up to Wicked Saints, the first book in her Something Dark and Holy trilogy, Emily A. Duncan paints a Gothic, icy world where shadows whisper, and no one is who they seem, with a shocking ending that will leave you breathless.”

An excellent sequel to Wicked Saints. This series is perfect for fans of Six of Crows, Shadow and Bones, and the Shadowhunter series.

I feel like this book was a lot like the second Fantastic Beasts movie: it's a placeholder between books one and three. There's a lot of important information, but it doesn't have as much of the excitement as the first (and hopefully third). There was a lot of rehashing of book one, and the pacing wasn't as great, but I'm invested enough for book 3.

I'll admit, I was nervous to read Ruthless Gods. It's predecessor, Wicked Saints, took me awhile to get into it. I felt that I got drawn into Ruthless Gods sooner than Wicked Saints, but it tends to jump around a bit in the narrative. What I did like about this book, is that nothing is predictable. How do you review a book that is unpredictable without giving away spoilers? It is better to not give anything away. Go into it with an open mind, and know that nothing will stay as it seems.


A big thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Well...Emily A Duncan definitely hit the nail on the head with this title because this book is RUTHLESS!


I don’t even have thoughts yet. Well, I have thoughts they just don’t make sense. I need time and maybe an immediate reread because I’m pretty sure Ruthless Gods just broke me.


Full review to come.

I received an arc for exchange of an honest review.
First I want to say I loved the first book Wicked Saints, it was one of my favorite reads last year. Ruthless Gods took me some time to get into. The characters I became invested in, in the first book were gone. There were unnecessary grotesque images regarding a certain character. Ruthless Gods, each character had their own motives and were keeping secrets that were easily guessed. It was I survived this event in Wicked Saints, what did you do to survive. Many of the problems the characters faced could very easily be avoided if they only talked to each other.
Ruthless Gods lacked the action from the first book. It has been replaced with a slow and tedious read. It took me much longer than I would have liked to get through. The first 30% was a rehash of what happened during Wicked Saints. While Ruthless Gods seemed to sink into the second book filler category I will read the third book if only to see what happens next.

Tedious is the word I’d use to describe this book. The story is good and the characters have potential; however, the situations and much of the dialogue is repetitious and very pedantic. Also, it was irritating as a reader to slog through “foreign” terms and phrases that didn’t necessarily enhance the other worldliness only to have the dialogue littered with contemporary “shits” and “fucks” pulling me away from the mood.

This was a really solid sequel! Bad things continue to happen to the terrible children and they try to deal with it and save their respective countries but not themselves. I really loved the three main characters when we were first introduced to them in Wicked Saints. Though I might have favored a certain drunk prince over the other two. This book really elevated Nadya and Malachiasz up in my opinion. (Well okay Malachiasz was already pretty high up there.) This book somehow managed to get much darker than the first and I loved the desperation and destructive decisions the characters were forced to make. Everyone is struggling and it probably says something about me but I loved reading about these characters when they were feeling so low. If I had to pick a quote to sum up where the main three are at it would have to be this, "They had all been waiting with their knives at each other's backs. It was time to plunge the dagger home." It's not all so dire though, the book also does a great job interjecting moments of humor amid all the darkness and despair.

I loved that Parijahan got more page time in this book! She even got a couple of POV chapters! I was very interested in the Akolans in the first book and I'm happy we got to discover some of Parijahan's secrets. There's a bit in the book I loved where she compares herself to Nadya and Malachiasz and how her devotion to her country does not eclipse herself like it so clearly does with the other two. We also met Katya who was just a delight. I don't want to talk much about her because spoilers but she was a lot of fun.

As a final note I also absolutely loved all the grotesque body horror descriptions in this book. My 2020 is off to a dark start but I'm here for it. This ended with a bang just like Wicked Saints and I have no idea what's going to happen in the finale for this series but from the looks of things, it won't be anything good. I cannot wait to read book three, too bad this isn't even out yet for three months!

First, I must thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s press for providing me with an e-ARC of this astoundingly dark and brooding nightmare of a book. This book will plunge readers into a realm of darkness and will make them yearn for a tiny shred of light, yet they will still be thankful for the harrowing, heart-rending journey.

The story starts where Wicked Saints left off and illuminates the broken beings the three main characters have become. They are all enveloped in varying degrees of darkness and are reduced to playthings of a seemingly immutable and inescapable fate. Nadya is floundering without her gods and with the slowly dawning knowledge of her latent power. She is lost and in need of guidance, but she cannot sever her tie or unshakable bond to the boy who betrayed her. Malachiasz successfully fashioned himself into a monster yet must continue to smother the small amount of humanity that remains within. He, too, cannot sever his connection to Nadya despite their incompatible beliefs and loyalties. And finally, Serefin, the newly anointed Tranavian king, is slowly unraveling under the unrelenting influence of a pair of “lesser” gods. He is losing himself through the incessant chatter of the gods who wish to shape their fate and is unwillingly dragged to a conclusion he regrets. Through their journey they continue towards a dark fate, actively betraying one another in the basest of ways. They are all pulled by their mutual goals to rectify the crumbling world around them but are divided by their stalwart adherence to their personal ideologies. This continual conflict forms the crux of the story and provides the tension that never ceases. The conclusion deposits the reader in a dark realm of possibilities and provides no indication of what fate awaits our battered protagonists.

The writing of this book, though dark and depressing, is well-done. The main characters are thoroughly entrenched in misery and Emily Duncan deftly plunked me right alongside them. Ruthless Gods spins a bleak world out the fraying threads of flawed gods and humans and it is difficult to trudge through emotionally. The story churns slowly and is infuriatingly indulgent and redundant at times, but never enough to drive me away. I am bound to all three main characters and I hope they are able to emerge unscathed in the conclusion. Duncan is skillful in her ability to make her characters sympathetic and manages to forge a lens that positively skews them despite committing the vilest of deeds. The story seems to be careening towards a bleak ending that I am resolutely prepared for, but I am hoping that love can ultimately conquer all.

Disclaimer : I received an arc in exchange of an honest review.
So this is a hard one to review.
There were things that I really enjoyed in the first one, unfortunately this one took me too long to read. It was so cliche/predictable. There were so many repetitions in the way the book was written, it felt as if all we had read in the first book was all these characters were. There was little to no character development and what I did find wasn't answers to questions and things happening in Wicked Saints but rather left me feeling as if the author had no idea where she wanted to take the story. I would've honestly prefered waiting more time for the sequel and having it be better than getting the sequel the year after.
After reading the first book, while I did not love it, I was excited to see where things would go. I loved the magic aspects of the story and while it had taken me a long time to get into it, though it wasn't memorable it was okay/enjoyable.
This story had no depth to it, while there are battles and action, they felt more like a way the author was trying to cover up the fact that the story was seemingly going nowhere than a cumulation of events leading to it (like a omg this is going to happen I can't wait; this felt more like ahh okay this is happening now).
I was very disappointed in this novel.
While I do see potential in the concept it was executed poorly in my opinion.
Hopefully her future novels will be more thought out/written in a captivating way.
I cannot recommend this unfortunately.
2/5 stars
-Bookarina

Well there's a new Black Vulture in town. Duncan takes the Vulture crown as she sinks her iron claws into our chests and rips out our still beating hearts.

Who doesn't love a good tale where the lines between heroes and villains are blurred and entwined. Serafin is not the evil destroyer we originally thought, Malachaisz ascending to his role as the Monster he always said he was, and Nadya not quite the hero we were all rooting for. Each character forges onward with their own righteous justice. Too caught up being the hero in their story and a villain in someone else's to recognise something much bigger and more dangerous lurks in the dark.

Duncan's writing has matured since Wicked Saints. It is not as stilted and jarring and has a more fluid rhythm. Yes, there are some plot inconsistencies, character cliches, very unhealthy and toxic relationships, confusing action scenes, filling and padding, and a wee bit of repetition with Nadya's inner monologuing, but you can't help but devour Duncan's words. It is easy to swoon for these very very flawed creatures, get sucked into the horrific wonderland and dragged along on their perilous doomed quest.

DNF at 25%. I’ve just come to realize that I don’t think I care about this series now as much as I did when the first book came out. What I did read was well written though.

I wanted to love this book. The first book in the series was such a great setup that I was eagerly awaiting this new volume. Alas, I was a little disappointed. The previous story ended with our heroine being horribly betrayed by the boy she was falling in love with. No big deal, I guess, but her country and her Gods are at risk because of the stupid decisions she has made because she can't get over a stupid boy. After a while I just couldn't with her any longer. I mean. Your boyfriend betrayed you and turned into a literal monster and you're still in love and trying to save him. It was so frustrating. This girl seemed smart and had power and nothing mattered to her really expect saving this idiot boy. And if his stupid dark hair and beautiful face were described one more time I was going to heave this book across the room. There was such terrific potential here and it was all wasted, thrown out for a second rate formulaic teen romance with a damaged boy and a stupid girl that sacrifices everything to save him. The setup of this story deserved so much better. The mythology and the world created were so interesting that I was legitimately sad to see such potential squandered. The 3 stars are really for what might have been, since it could have been so great. Unfortunately it was just not my cup of tea. I'm sure there are plenty of people that will eat up this romance; I'm just not one of them.

I was given this ARC for my honest review

I absolutely loved this book!! I loved Wicked Saints and this book did not disappoint!!

This. Series. Is. Epic. I am completely enthralled by these books and I am already itching to be re-immersed in this world!

I loved Wicked Saints, but unfortunately the continuing story of Nadya left me wanting. There was no grab me moment I was so desperate for in Ruthless Gods. It was well-written and a quick read that was good, but I felt it was lacking in some areas.

This was a pretty unique concept in a YA title. I don’t think I’ve ever read such a religion centric book. It was a great commentary on personal beliefs, the things we stand up for and the things we believe without really understanding them. A good mix of action and intrigue.