The core of the magic in this edgy, often disturbing fantasy is that the anguish of slaves was so deep, so powerful, that it created a spell persisting to the modern age. This takes the form of bespelled hands – hands that can detect a person’s darkest secrets, hands that can tell the future – and hands that crave justice. In 1940s New York, the descendents of those slaves, men and women gifted with magical hands, often end up on the wrong side of the law. Phyllis, the first of these characters, is an enforcer for a white mobster, his “avenging angel.” Her best friend, Tamara, dances with a snake and tells fortunes at the mobster’s night club. And Dev, who loves them both, is a bartender by night and police informant by day. But someone has been targeting Blacks and harvesting their hands…

Trouble the Saints is a difficult book to describe. It’s not an easy or comfortable read, but it is an important book, fearlessly delving into issues of racism, injustice, murder, greed, and forgiveness.

Sadly this one was just not my favorite. I can see other readers enjoying it and in fact can think of a friend or two I would recommend it to, but it was a DNF for me. I’m still very grateful to have received an eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book was good I give it a 3.5/5 stars. I think my main problem was that it took me a while to figure out how the fantasy part worked. Phyllis and her hands especially. The switching of POVs also left me a bit confused because I wasn't expecting it and I felt like we could have heard more from each of them. I think the aspect that felt more memorable was the way the struggles of each POC were written and integrated into the story. It was very insightful for the reader because not everyone is aware of these struggles.

Written in three parts from three different POVs, Trouble the Saints is both a commentary on racism and societal rank; as well as a fantasy story that questions the ideas of fate, religion, and free will. Comparing it to The Night Circus really rubs me the wrong way as Night Circus is one of my favourite books ever. While Trouble the Saints was okay, it was no five star read.

Flow & Cohesiveness
The flow just isn't smooth, I believe I would have liked this better if Alaya Dawn Johnson flipped between our three character POVs. Even if that meant the story had to alternate timelines and wasn't presented as the segregated mess it becomes. I'm glad I didn't give up on this one as the last POV was my favourite.
Trouble the Saints lacks a cohesiveness between the three parts and the main plot. I struggled to feel like I was even reading the same book at times. We go from beautiful descriptions in part one to frame jobs that could belong on Sons of Anarchy in part two to a commentary on racism in part three. For this reason I think it would have been better to tell the story between all three POVs (and timelines). Hopefully then I could have pieced together important events or tidbits that I was supposed to with the parts separated.

What am I Missing?
I really want to read the books that come before this one... there isn't any; but it felt like there should have been. A lot of content is told to us by our characters. The main plot stems from events that happened years before. Unlike Game of Thrones or another 'typical' fantasy series where there is a large backstory and history, but the current story is just as good, Trouble the Saints lacks something in it's current setting. I kept thinking I wish I was reading the story about XYZ event that was being explained or described from the past. While any good (complex) fantasy novel will have a solid backstory I think authors need to be careful that the backstory isn't better or more interesting than the one they are currently telling.

Morals
All that said there is one thing that is excellent in this book. Johnson explains, portrays, and discusses sexism, prejudice, racism, etc. as though she is a woman twice her age. The insight and eloquence with which Johnson lays out these social issues is brilliant. With quotes that challenge the reader to really think, like:
<i>"Does just avoiding bad things make you a good person? Don’t you have to do good things for that?"</i>
We are given a platform in which to really ask ourselves tough questions. The discussion and bantering of our characters in part three lends itself to a really interesting book club (or English class) conversation. I definitely want to read more of Johnson's opinions and takes on social issues (be it in non-fiction or fiction) in the future. And lending her some street cred (if you will) she is not a snowflake and can pull from her own genuine experiences; something many authors (including my white self) cannot do.

Overall
Johnson is certainly a writer to watch for in the future. While Trouble the Saints isn't without it's pitfalls and issues; there is a lot of promise here that can be seen under the surface. This is her first book with a significant publisher (TOR) and I can absolutely see their amazing editorial team only improving on the talent that is clearly there. I will definitely read future Johnson in the hopes that some of the more amateur issues here are improved on.
Lastly, it was a huge mistake to promote this book as The Night Circus in my opinion. I might have enjoyed it a lot more if I wasn't expecting something different than what was delivered. A good reminder that blurbs matter. Unfortunately they are rarely written by the author, and yet blurbs are the first entrance (besides the cover) that we have to get a sense of what the book is all about. I really love TOR books 90% of the time. They do have the occasional miss from an author but they are rarely wrong about the author having potential or promise. Let's hope TOR invests in Johnson and we see more from her in the future.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

This is a muddled story that I wanted to love, but simply couldn't get into. A black assassin from Harlem is a fantastic protagonist, but the story itself was confusing and underwhelming.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Trouble The Saints is a book that grew on me. I felt kind of lukewarm about it in the beginning but by the end the book had taken my heart. I will put most of that lukewarm feeling to the fact that I had a misunderstanding about what this book was supposed to be. I must have read the synopsis not well because I was expecting a book that was a little more high action and focused on Phyllis being a hitter for the mob. However this book is much quieter than that. I think they best way to summarize the book is that it's a book about love in three parts. We follow Pea/Phyllis, a hit woman for the mob, Dev a bartender at the mob's home bar, and Pea's ex, and Tamara a dancer at the bar, Dev's Girlfriend and Bea's best friend. Each has their own section where we follow them making a decision that will affect their loved ones. The book is a fascinating look at what it means to love someone, dealing with trauma with racism playing a central theme throughout.
This is definitely a book for people who love characters, a plot exists but it is slow and much more important is the time we spend with each character in their head and life. This book feels so well woven together and the characters feel so real. It's so interesting to see how each character looks from each perspective and we get this really full idea of who each is. Then the end really ties the whole book together and makes it twice as powerful. I highly suggest giving it a read.

The writing and atmosphere of the novel was fantastic and the story’s strongest elements for sure along with some really interesting characterisation.

I did find the beginning a little lacking in clarity which hindered my overall enjoyment slightly as I struggled with the first quarter. After that, when things started to fall into place for me I definitely became a lot more invested and I did enjoy the switch up of characters, I though that was a really fresh and original approach.

Overall a solid read, perfect for a fall read.

TROUBLE WITH THE SAINTS
By Alaya Dawn Johnson
Tor Books: New York, 2020. $26.99

An historical mystery with touches of magical realism. A gritty crime novel involving gangsters and their world in late 1930s New York. A triangular romance. A brutal novel of racism and all its injustices. A rumination on justice and goodness. TROUBLE WITH THE SAINTS is all of the above. It’s an ambitious novel that asks readers to mull over and weight the consequences of the morally dubious actions of murderers, liars, moles, gangsters, and the criminally naive. One thread to tie them all together—there is no greater curse than that of the white man.

The themes of TROUBLE THE SAINTS, her first adult novel in eight years, are an extension of Alaya Dawn Johnson’s previous award-winning work for both adults and young adults. She is probably best known for her YA novels THE SUMMER PRINCE and LOVE IS THE DRUG. The first was nominated for and the second won, in 2015, the Andre Nortion (Nebula) Award for YA science fiction and fantasy. In some ways, TROUBLE THE SAINTS picks up with the theme she addressed in the earlier YA Spirit Binders trilogy: magic-wielding women who “understand the dark trade offs of power and sacrifice”.

This novel in three points of view begins with Phyllis Green as she’s known above 110th Street or Phyllis LeBlanc as she’s known below. The name says it all. She is passing as white in the employ of the Russian-born gangster, Victor Demov. She is his ‘angel of justice’, for she has ‘the hands’, a gift from the saints to never miss with her murderous knives. The magic deserts her after she kills an innocent man, Trent Sullivan. Once she discovers Victor lied to her, the hands want vengeance, but they are denied.

After Victor’s death, Phyllis and her lover Devajyoti Patil, try to live quietly in the Hudson Valley in a house owned by Dev, who takes over the tale. He is a highly introspective character, not a surprise given whom he wishes to be versus who he is. His love for Phyllis is real, but it’s tied up with his gift. He has the hands, too, of always knowing a threat. Her past as Victor’s knife torments him as he wrestles with his own past as an undercover cop. Complicating their lives are the secrets of the small town’s elite family, the Bells. Alvin, a young Black boy working for the white shopkeeper who gave Dev a chance, has the hands, an unerring ability to reveal secrets—which he does to devastating, explosive personal and social effect.

Finally, Dev accepts being drafted and marries Phyllis before shipping out. His former lover Tamara agrees to stay with Phyllis who is pregnant. Tamara loves Phyllis, but cannot abide knowing what is coming. Tamara doesn’t have the hands. She’s an oracle with a strange deck of cards dating from slave days. Through her the voices of ancestors speak, but she doesn’t want the responsibility. She runs away to New York, where she revisits her old haunts and realizes she’s been criminally naive. No, she isn’t a killer, and no, she’s not a gangster, but she’s not precisely good since she’s close to both. Once she owns up to who and what she is, the choice becomes clear. She returns to Phyllis, to face her own sacrifice.

Why include an Anglo-Indian, Dev Patil, in what is fundamentally a story of limited options amidst appalling danger under America’s original sin? (I do appreciate the way Johnson blows up the myth that Northerns aren’t as racist as Southerners. New York is fully as bad as Virginia, in very much the same ways.) Yes, Britain was the snake that brought slavery to her American colonies, and Britain ultimately replaced the Mughal empire in India. The author makes the point that empire is racist and oppressive, speaking repeatedly of enslaved and colonized peoples. Students of empire know that’s not the whole story; for many, empire was an opportunity.

Really, it is subaltern solidarity. Dev is passing, as is Phyllis, altho’ not for the same reasons or in the same way. As an Anglo-Indian, he is seen as Black in the American sense, and he rolls with it. He is passing as a criminal, but he is an undercover cop. Dev has a foot in several overlapping worlds, but in truth he really belongs in none of them. His internal conflicts are legion, but making him a mole with split loyalties makes him perfect for Phyllis and perfect to present the complexities of loyalty and empire and oppression.

Victor, the Russian gangster, is a right villain, but not in the usual ways. He represents all white people in power in that he steals power from Black people whilst giving them the illusion of empowerment and identity, something Tamara finally understands. He uses Black people to his own nefarious ends, something that Phyllis learns to her consternation. When he is finally put down, he curses Phyllis and Dev. Is this curse specific to them or is it generic to all Black people? Turns out, it is both, but we don’t see that till the end, when it hits like a speeding, four-engine coal train.

But curses go both ways. Dev and Phyllis’s daughter is named Durga. She is named for the Indian goddess who ensures creation, preservation, and the destruction of evil forces in the university. Durga comes with many avatars, including Kali. A ten-armed goddess, Durga holds a different weapon in each hand; these weapons, each a gift from the other gods. The great mother, she protects her devotees and destroys all evil. What a scourge Phyllis and Dev’s daughter will be. Or will she? We’ll have to wait for the sequel to find out. I sincerely hope it ’t be a long wait.

**I received this book from netgalley in exchange for a review**

"A decade ago I met a woman covered in someone else's blood and she was my darkest fantasy come to life."†

This is one of those heady, cerebral books that is nearly impossible to review. It will other suck you in or completely fail to resonate. I don't entirely know how I feel about this book, but I do know I will be thinking about it a lot for a long while.

It was dark and magical and oh-so deliciously gritty. It was so beautifully written that I felt like I was watching a movie rather than reading a book (I also couldn't help but picture something akin to Frank Miller's Sin City... all monochromatic with sudden explosions of color).

The three main characters of this book were so artfully complicated and deeply flawed. They seemed like living, breathing people. And the complexity of their relationships with each other was perfection. The relationship between Pea and Tammy (my favorite) was masterfully displayed. "It was a blood love, a bone love, and it ricocheted off of her other loves at unexpected angles."†

I really want to know where Pea and Tammy's lives take them, but I also think this is a perfect standalone. It perfectly captures a moment, a single choice that a person makes, that changes everything forever. Truly a work of art.


†check against final text

It took me a little while to get into this book. Because I could feel the story pacing wasn’t what I’ve been reading lately, I stuck with it. I still feel the beginning was a little slow to bring you in— you’re not really prepared for the way it flashes back in time, and that break distracts you, and keeps you from sinking into the world as quickly.
The marketing has also played up the assassin and magic elements of the book, which I feel ultimately does it a disservice, Those elements are absolutely a part of the story, but I wonder if centring them in descriptions, will keep the right readers from finding this book?
Trouble the Saints has more of a noir vibe than one of fantasy. The leads are interesting characters who are forced to make difficult decisions. Those with magic are pursued and used for what they can do.
Note: This book is set in the 1920s/1930s (I may be slightly off here) and there is some reflective language of the time period used. CW for sexism and racism.

Alaya Dawn Johnson’s “Trouble the Saints” is a well-written novel with many very compelling elements, which somehow don’t coalesce into a truly compelling story. This is clearly not for lack of skill; Johnson writes with beautiful, vivid, atmospheric prose, fully immersing the reader in the WWII-era Manhattan jazz clubs and upstate New York country estates the characters inhabit. Johnson sequentially shifts POV across three central characters, which was interesting and unexpected, based on the jacket description’s focus on the knife-wielding assassin with juju hands. These central characters appear interesting on the face, especially the aforementioned central one, and the presence of various supernatural abilities among people of color in the story, along with the loaded historical context of racial tension, would seem to make this a compelling setup, especially given our current milieu.

However, none of the characters were altogether likeable, which made it hard to become fully invested in their trials. Additionally, Johnson chose to tell the part of the story that probably wasn’t the part that most readers were most interested in, if they were interested in the immediate exploits of a badass quasi-vigilante juju knife-throwing black woman. The meat of the story was not focused on such explicit excitement and use of power. This may have been intentional on the part of the author, this sense of satisfaction being just out of reach for the reader, mirroring the characters’ condition, their disappointment at the powerlessness of those with supposed power. Again, it’s very well written, and there’s a lot of food for thought in terms of the relevancy of racial dynamics, power dynamics, relationships, personal flaws, and introspection. It may be just the ticket for some readers, depending on their mood. For me, it just didn’t quite come together, and the story’s potential seemed not quite fulfilled.

Three stars, worth a try.

Trouble the Saints, written by Alaya Dawn Johnson, is a crime noir story mixed with juju. It’s a ghost story, but the spirits haunt the wrong people. It’s a revenge story, but one that never is fulfilled, as the crime goes so deep, it feels near irredeemable—yet, there is always hope.

Read the full review at Lightspeed Magazine.

Are you looking for something new in the fantasy genre? This is it! The world building was fantastic. The story and characters were great. I really enjoyed it.

Thank you to the Publisher and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

This was such a wonderfully interesting book, I loved the concept behind it. The era it was set in, the gorgeous writing, everything about this book was absolutely wonderful. I would recommend anyone to pick it up if you enjoy the blend of fantasy and historical fiction.

Thanks Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Holy Sh*t! I’ve never read something quite like this before, fantasy and crime... gritty Harlem and gifts from the powers that be... I loved the writing style, excellent character development, I could’ve used a bit more world building, I would’ve liked to feel more Harlem... But to honest, I didn’t even notice until the end, everything else was that dynamic. Johnson is definitely on my short list for favorite authors after this page turner, I can’t wait to grab a copy for our library!

2.5* rounded up

I will start this off by saying that the last 15% of this book was amazing. It was an incredibly powerful, compelling take on intergenerational trauma, hope, and love. The last 15% is why I rounded up and not down for this review. It has true character growth that saved me from the utter disappointment I feel after finishing many adult fiction books, and the writing was clear and focused.

However. I am a journey-over-destination person and the journey was excruciating.

At the beginning, the book seems very promising. There's a semi-reformed hit woman dealing with racism, "passing privilege", and the Russian mob - plus an interesting cast of side characters. The conflict between Phyllis, the hit woman, and Victor, the ruthless mob boss, is ramping up to be really interesting. There's an interesting phenomenon referred to as "the hands" that you want to learn more about. Great start.

Then the next 40% is weird existential sexual angst on behalf of Phyllis's former lover. If you cut out Dev's point of view chapters, this book would be stellar. Instead, the book loses all momentum and as a reader I lost all interest. The best thing I can compare the middle of this book to is CATCHER IN THE RYE which is, incidentally, one of my least favorite books of all time. The really frustrating part is that there is an interesting and powerful story being told during this point of view segment, but because we're getting Dev's point of view instead of Phyllis's, or even their burlesque performer friend Tamara (who steals the show in part 3), the actual events happening are playing second fiddle to the ceaseless "why am I sexually attracted to a hit woman" internal monologue that makes up the entire. middle. of. the. book.

Ultimately, the thing that really affects my feelings about this book, I think, is that the actual book has <b>almost nothing to do with the way it is described</b>. If the book had been described more accurately - literary speculative fiction with a dose of magical realism set in the outskirts of New York City during the 1920s - I definitely would not have picked it up. It's just not my thing. If that sounds great to you, I highly recommend this title. If it does not, I strongly suggest going elsewhere.

You can begin smelling cigarette smoke and hearing jazz within pages of this masterpiece. Evocative writing and innovative plotting elevates this story of an assassin with gifted Hands and her bartender ex-boyfriend in 1940s New York. Any attempt to explain the plot becomes instantly fraught with spoilers, so I'll settle for saying that you want to read this book.

I feel that the advertising for this book has done it is a disservice. Many reviewers seem to have been expecting an adventure tale about an African-American assassin in “glamorous” New York. There is nothing “glamorous” about the reality and the constant effect of racism and just trying to survive with the brutality of it all in the 1940s. This is a lyrical book that looks at hope and redemption but also the brutality of how life was including lynching and death of black children at the hands of police. These are touched on without graphic details but the emotional resonance is very strong. I love the reasoning behind the Saint’s hands and the ending with hope even with deep tragedy. I will admit that this book took me two tries to read, but I read the second two parts in one sitting. I connected more with Dev and Tamara’s POV and the greater focus on love, sacrifice and redemption. I would tell readers to go in with an open mind to learn about a time period that is often overly glamorized and ignores the dark aspects of how the US treated and still treated non-whites and those without money or power. This is not a light fluffy assassin story but worth the time and emotional energy.

This book had an interesting concept, but it took awhile to really get going. The first third felt like a mix of every hard-boiled noir I've ever read and a wonderfully original story of mythology and magic. The wordbuilding was a little too slow and left me feeling confused at times, but it did eventually build up enough context for the world and the magic that I understood what was happening.