Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book! This was an eerie read, that started with high tensions right from the get go - the people of the nation are trapped, with no where to go, and help doesn’t seem to be arriving. Oh, and most importantly, they’re running out of food. The tensions start high and remain high as we watch things quickly devolve and the stakes run higher. The book does a shockingly good job of portraying the lengths of human depravity, the toll of desperation, and struggle of survival. A great novel with medieval horror, cult-like religion, and all the elements of a dark fantasy you could want.

A gorgeously grotesque tale soaked in blood and belief, The Starting Saints was a fever dream of fanaticism and horror. Starling's prose drips with dread, pulling you into a cultish world where devotion devours. Perfectly paced and unsettlingly intimate, it's the kind of book that lingers like a half-remembered nightmare.

Astonishingly dark, grotesque, and even a bit beautiful. 10/10, perfect, no notes.

This medieval horror novel is as seductive as it is gruesome. It’s a cannibalistic nightmare of a fever dream… and the best book I’ve read this year. These pages are filled with desperation, violence, and intoxicating sapphic yearning.

The siege of Aymar Castle is going on six months. Food stores are nearly depleted, while prayers to the Constant Lady and her saints seem to go unanswered. Everyone within the castle walls is starving. Phosyne, the heretic, works day and night to produce a miracle that will feed the castle. The King has tasked his knight, Ser Voyne, with supervising Phosyne’s work. Neither woman is happy with the situation - Ser Voyne would rather die fighting her way through the forces assembled outside the castle gates, and Phosyne cannot work in the presence of another person. While the two women suffer in Phosyne’s fetid tower, deep in the castle, the young servant girl Treila is stretching her rations even further. She will do anything to stay alive long enough to see her oath of vengeance fulfilled. She is a survivor. She understands hunger.

One day, the Constant Lady and her saints arrive, promising salvation. What would you do if that salvation seemed too good to be true?

I loved all three POVs in this book. Their fight to survive as the castle descends into bacchanalian madness was utterly compelling. Loyalties shift, relationships change, and their humanity hangs on a knife’s edge. Despite the ever increasing violence and gore, I could not put this down. Or perhaps the horror of the situation is exactly what spurred me on. What does that say about me? What will it say about you?

I do not want to spoil the plot further. This is a book you need to experience for yourself!

It is actually painful to say this because this book has everything I should love, but I had to DNF. The first half felt so slow that I found myself struggling to pick it up right now. I would love to revisit this at a later time, because unfortunately I am such a mood reader, so maybe it just wasn’t hitting at the right time. I do look forward to giving The Starving Saints another chance.

The Starving Saints was one of the books I was most anticipating, and I’m grateful to Avon and Harper Voyager, and NetGalley, for the opportunity to read the e-ARC in advance. There was so much obvious intrigue and appeal to me, as a queer person with a religious past, and the promises the book makes in its presentation and description are completely fulfilled by its narrative. Bacchanalian would be putting it far too mildly, and I mean that in the best way possible. From the very first pages, we are sent spiraling down a twisted path that is only illuminated before us through flickers of delicious chaos.

The magic is complex in this world and full of riddles and negotiations, which are delightfully cruel and attempting to solve them and figure out their deeper connections to the plot is a unique reading experience. Each of the three main characters is fully realized and distinct, and their evolving relationships with each other are fascinating to read about as the world around them descends into a kind of madness that threatens to entrap them all. I’d single out one as a favorite but truly, I loved the time I spent with all three of the women the main narrative follows.

This book is very much a “the girls that get it, get it” kind of a story, and I am absolutely one of the girls that got it. I think a lot of other people will feel the same love for it that I do. Painting with shades of a medieval Mona Awad but with a voice that is all her own, Caitlin Starling describes the fever dream of her world with lyrical precision. It’s grotesque, but undeniably beautiful and rich with religious symbolism. Though you feel the oppressive crush of the danger in the world, you also feel the same pull to explore it as her characters do. To me, this was a triumph and one of my favorite reads of the year so far.

This book was not for me. The synopsis was more interesting than the actual story. I didn’t care for the writing style or the main character. I pretty much skimmed the last 50 pages. The plot was silly and predictable, not worth your precious time, folks.

Thank you Netgalley! I'd actually give this a strong 4.5.

I knew this story was going to be a lot, but wow...it was A LOT. It was a visceral look into the depravity of human nature as told through the eyes of three queer woman. That sounds incredible on the surface and I was kind of expecting to be let down in the execution, but I *loved* it.

The characters and the relationships they had between each other were amazing. Treila was definitely my favorite, but I still loved reading about Voyne and Phosyne and felt very invested in what happened to them. I would have loved to read more about their individual pasts, but I think that's more of a credit to the story than anything else.

The "Saints" were equally incredible. They were very unique and scary, mostly in part to the fact that they weren't explicitly the only monsters--they were just bringing human depravity to the surface. While it was never explicitly stated, I believe they were meant to be faeries and I LOVE that. I thought it was an incredible choice to have them taking the appearances of the humans' religious figures. Obsessed with faeries in a horror context.

first of all. 5/5 stars. I went into this book knowing very little, only that there was some saintly things going on? and well yes. there were. but also this book is sooooo much more than that. We open the story onto a castle that has been under siege for 6 months. it's people are starving and hopeless. our main characters, an outcast nun tasked with solving an impossible problem, a young servant woman with a revenge plot, and an obedient to a fault knight on a leash. what happens when the outcast does solve this problem? and what happens when the solution is more horrific than anyone could have imagined?

this book is gross. its depraved. its delicious. i loved every second of it. the writing is lush and vivid and i wanted to eat it. i loved the characters and their interactions with each other and their situation. i loved how fantastical this story was. i loved how small the characters' world was, it added to the creepiness and horror of the situation. ouhg i think i'm gonna be thinking about this one for a while.

honestly, i recommend going into this story with as little information as possible. obviously look up trigger warnings if you think you'll need them, because it's definitely gory. but i honestly was just so surprised by this book.

god i want to say so much more but i can't without like. giving too much of it away. i would recommend this to anyone who - likes crazy lesbians, doesn't mind a meandering plot for the purpose of imo Immaculate vibes, likes weird and inexplicable magic, and/or wants to get lost in a sickly sweet and sweltering castle 🐝🥩

again, thank you to netgalley and the publisher for sending me this e-ARC!!!!

The premise is intriguing and so is the book. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I wasn't dissapointed with what I got. I really enjoyed this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced digital edition.

I really didn't like this book, I'm surprised because I read SO much gothic horror that I felt like this would have been a win for me. And it really wasn't. It was really written in a "First this happened, then this, then this." And it felt like it had no editing, There was no flowery writing, which is what I look for something so it doesn't feel like I'm reading a text book.

I will not be suggesting this book to anyone. It's just hard to read.

Maybe it's a better fit for everyone else. I loved the Cover.

Thank you, Netgalley, for the ARC!
***
"Aymar Castle has been under siege for six months. Food is running low and there has been no sign of rescue. But just as the survivors consider deliberately thinning their number, the castle stores are replenished. The sick are healed. And the divine figures of the Constant Lady and her Saints have arrived, despite the barricaded gates, offering succor in return for adoration."
***
This book was a fever dream....but I can't tell if I mean that in a good way or a bad way! Following three women whose goal is to save Aymar Castle from some strange visitors, this story is unsettling, gory, and bizarre. I did certainly enjoy Starling's prose and descriptive scenes, but at times the story became quite confusing.

Review posted to GoodReads & tiktok

So weird and crazy in the best way possible!! I loved the premise and it was captivating from the start! Thank you NetGalley and publisher for early arc!

This was lush and disgusting and I loved every moment. The horror elements were the perfect amount of creepy and unsettling for me, that first scene of crawling through the tunnel was so visceral. I think that if you enjoy the Locked Tomb books, specifically the arm scene in Harrow the Ninth, then you’ll eat this up. I loved these nasty toxic sapphics and their weird codependency. I will say the magic system is a bit amorphous but I think it works because this book is a horror novel first and I don’t feel a need to understand all the lore in a horror story. Overall, this was exactly what I needed!

CW: cannibalism, murder of humans and animals, gore, claustrophobia triggers, amputation on page, death on page, past death of a parent, blood, and starvation

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Medieval horror with cannibalism, a sapphic romance, and lots and lots of bees? Sign me up!

This was my first Caitlin Starling novel so I had no idea what I was stepping into. Suffice it to say, I was thoroughly impressed. Reminded me a lot of Masque of the Red Death meets Between Two Fires. Starling's character development and world building are top notch. What drew me into this was the story (read that synopsis and tell me this doesn't sound interesting) but I became so wrapped up in our three female leads. They're all so unique and undergo fantastic character arcs.

The horror in this too is so unsettling and gross. Starling does a great job of ramping up the impeding dread. The descriptions of gore are also very unsettling.

This was a highly anticipated read for me and I'm so glad it delivered. I'm looking forward to catching up on Caitlin Starling's other works!

The Starving Saints is a terrific read (both for being good and for actually making me so scared I had to put the Kindle down and watch cartoons). It's atmospheric, it's dark, and it's perfect for those who, like me, enjoy the dark and the macabre. The characters were solid, the storyline was magnificent, the relationships served toxic excellence and the writing style was otherworldly. I couldn't recommend this more.

This was a highly anticipated release for me personally and unfortunately, after reading, it was a let down.

There were so many great elements here to make a captivating story: unsettling magic, alternate medieval setting of a locked in castle, the bee based religion, gorgeous spooky gory imagery, three sapphic characters of knight, former-nun current madwoman, and an ex-daughter of a dead lord. The execution, however, floundered for a good half of the book and eventually fell flat.

I think the main issue is that the narration is so focused on the aesthetics and showing off the spooky and gory bits that it forgets to have a clear line of plot direction. It also sacrifices character development. We don't really know much about the three main characters other than how they act in present tense. There are hints to their past and where they came from or what they had done before the siege of the castle but it's always maddeningly vague. In fact, so much of the narration is vague that at some point things just lose all threads of logic. Which could work with the kind of magic that the characters encounter but in the end it doesn't because new rules and events keep happening, piling on with vague overexplanations.

So much of the middle of the book is just constant tedious back and forth meandering and the end just neatly resolves everything in a way that feels a bit anticlimactic. The interactions between the three main characters feel forced and so much of their relationship is left unexplored, which really bothered me because that's kind of what I was there for.

The cannibalism aspect of it all and all the creepy creatures really were the stars of the show. It was all just creepy and off-putting enough that I really enjoyed it.

Overall, even though this was a miss for me I will still be reading more of Caitlin Starling's writing. Ultimately, I wish this would've been a short story instead of a full novel.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC.

I will admit, I was skeptical when I first read started reading this novel. The writing style is not one I typically gravitate toward, but once I had gotten used to it, I didn't want to put this book down. What more could I have asked for from a book? We got queer representation. We got a fast-paced, dark tale with some pretty fun elements to it. We got characters with depth that you couldn't help but love. It was a perfect storm of great writing.

If I were to offer any criticism, it would be that the plot at times was hard to follow, but once I collected my thoughts it sucked me right back in. I will definitely recommend this one to anyone looking for an atmospheric novel they could soar through on a rainy night.

Terrific novel, and thank you to those who made it possible for me to read it.

If you love medieval fantasy, cults, queer knight/damsels in distress throuple, cannabilism and gothic horror.. this is the read for you!! The way this book quite literally ATE me up. The cover originally caught my eye but I had no idea what i was in for. A bit of a slow burn but it was almost torture that way! The gore and eerieness was the perfect amount to make up for the original speed of the story. It was a deeply detailed novel. I would read this over and over again.
Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins publishing for an arc in exchange for an honest review!

"From the nationally bestselling author of The Luminous Dead and The Death of Jane Lawrence, a transfixing fever dream of medieval horror following three women in a besieged castle that descends ravenously into madness under the spell of mysterious, godlike visitors.

Aymar Castle has been under siege for six months. Food is running low and there has been no sign of rescue. But just as the survivors consider deliberately thinning their number, the castle stores are replenished. The sick are healed. And the divine figures of the Constant Lady and her Saints have arrived, despite the barricaded gates, offering succor in return for adoration.

Soon, the entire castle is under the sway of their saviors, partaking in intoxicating feasts of terrible origin. The war hero Ser Voyne gives her allegiance to the Constant Lady. Phosyne, a disorganized, paranoid nun-turned-sorceress, races to unravel the mystery of these new visitors and exonerate her experiments as their source. And in the bowels of the castle, a serving girl, Treila, is torn between her thirst for a secret vengeance against Voyne and the desperate need to escape from the horrors that are unfolding within Aymar's walls.

As the castle descends into bacchanalian madness - forgetting the massed army beyond its walls in favor of hedonistic ecstasy - these three women are the only ones to still see their situation for what it is. But they are not immune from the temptations of the castle's new masters...or each other; and their shifting alliances and entangled pasts bring violence to the surface. To save the castle, and themselves, will take a reimagining of who they are, and a reorganization of the very world itself."

The Masque of the Red Death meets Gideon the Ninth.

Protect your fingers and your ears my friends, as you attempt to survive the horrific bliss that befalls the starving masses who hide within the walls of the Aymar Castle during a six month long siege. In the moment before the last of the food finally runs out, four saintly beings appear, offering relief in the form of a fabulous feast - glistening dripping meats, the freshest juiciest fruits.

The King and his servants are immediately enthralled and welcome them with open arms. But our three protagonists - Phosyne, an ex-nun with a habit of performing minor miracles; Ser Voyne, one of the King's most loyal knights; and Treila, a serving girl with a taste for revenge - are not so easily fooled. They know this is too good to be true and band together in an attempt to banish the angelic creatures from the castle and restore what little control they might.

As bizarre as it is beautiful, this book is brimming with cannibalism, self mutilation, dark entities, and honey bees. Yes, you heard me right... honey bees. What starts off slowly soon becomes a fascinating deep sea dive into the divine, the devout, the devious, and the delirious.

Once it gets going, you're basically putty in Starling's hands.

Now I'm itching for some more medieval and religious horror. I've got Lauren Groff's Matrix, and Christopher Buehlman's Between Two Fires in the tbr pile and I can hear them calling to me rather loudly right now....