A big thank you to NetGalley and Caitlin Starling for this eArc!

The Starving Saints is one of the most startling, macabre, atmospheric, and devastating books I have ever read. With every word, I was transported and stuck in Aymar Castle along with all the people and creatures that lurk within.

Set inside a keep under siege with fifteen days of food left before absolute starvation, The Starving Saints follows an unhinged witch, a confused lady knight, and a feral girl all faced with impending doom. While their loyalties, pasts, and goals could not be more different, they must deal with a fate worse than starvation after mysterious and intoxicating beings appear within the impenetrable walls of the castle. With elements of religion, magic, abuse of power, and yearning (in all definitions of the word), the aforementioned witch, knight, and girl work with and against each other in the hell that is now their reality.

Starling has managed to create a world that I enjoyed exploring, but never want to enter with characters that I equally loathe and love. In addition to the writing being beautiful and lyrical, the pacing of the book effectively created a psychedelic atmosphere, and a messy, sapphic tone underscored everything that happened, tying the plot together. I cannot recommend this book enough. (4.75 stars rounded up to 5)

Give me more medieval horror with lady knights and corrupted ex nuns and girls living for revenge.

The Starving Saints is such an atmospheric book that fills the reader with an eerie sense as we follow our characters through the castle as it both starves and is invaded by monsters beyond belief. I was hoping for a bit more madness as that was such a large part of the promotion of the novel but the bacchanals that we got were intense and horrific. The saints were horrifying - I was very confused by the magic but also that felt like part of the point here.
The weakest part for me was the Trelia's desire for revenge but I loved her POV, the writing felt very strong but I did not fully buy into her journey.

This will be a niche read and you should know what you are getting into before picking it up. This would be for people who enjoy horror and fantasy. It is a fever dream but one I could not look away from. I was in it for the atmosphere and the vibes. Thanks to Netgalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. Will be interested in this author again!
4 star

I have been a fan of Caitlin’s writing since the release of The Death of Jane Lawrence, which I absolutely loved and highly recommend if you haven’t already read it.

So when I got approved on NetGalley for the eARC of The Starving Saints I just knew it was going to be amazing. BUT, I didn’t knit it was going to completely blow away all my expectations and become one of my top books for 2025. 😍🎉

It’s a medieval setting in a castle under siege and on the last stores of food with no idea how they’re going to pull through, unless the lord of the castle’s mad scientist type religious defector can create another miracle!

This story is ripe with magic, a unique religion, juicy bits of cannibalism, and characters that have you feel like you’re falling into the book and watching it all play out like a fly on the wall. Plus it’s queer!! That’s always a plus for me 🏳️‍🌈!

I felt a wide range of emotions, but mostly the despair and then blind chaos that was so prevalent in the story. It was so rich, like the honey that they hold so dear!

In a besieged castle that is days from running out of food, three women toil as they starve. The King's alchemist, the excommunicated nun Phosyne, seeks isolation while grasping for a magical solution to the castle's predicament. The loyal knight Ser Voyne, tasked with guarding Phosyne, itches under the boredom of the duty and oddness of her charge while servant-with-a-secret Treila is as hungry for revenge as she is for food and escape. The king is on the verge of taking desperate measures when three bejeweled saints arrive out of thin air with endless feasts and answers too good to be true, leading Phosyne, Ser Voyne, Treila, and the whole castle down a Dionystic road to ruin. The Starving Saints is a claustrophobic, sapphic fantasy tale for fans of Augustina Bazterrica's Tender is the Flesh and The Unworthy and Leigh Bardugo's The Familiar.

This had an interesting premise and was well-written. It was very atmospheric and visceral, but for me the strength was the creepy vibes and imagery rather than the plot and characters. I didn't feel very connected to the characters or story and the pacing was slow. This does help add to the sense of foreboding and building the mood, so it will definitely click for some readers but wasn't really for me!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I still don't know if I know what happened. What happened was a fever dream and I was scared and confused but I enjoyed it. It's so atmospheric and eerie, you felt as trapped as the main cast. What a wild ride.

3.75 stars--This is a beautifully written fever dream that confounded and disgusted me, but I liked it?

This takes place in a fantasy medieval world and follows three women who are forced to face starvation, violence, desire, and loathing. Firstly, Caitlin Starling knows how to write. I spend the first fourth of the book just admiring her prose. The filth and gore were transformed into a dazzling spectacle and made the mass descent into madness believable. I also believe that the isolation of the story helped heighten everything within; it is eat or be eaten within this small, enclosed space. There is nowhere to flee to and nothing is safe.

Despite my love of the prose, it did begin to weigh down the story around the middle. This took me far longer than most books to read and I finally decided I needed to start skimming a bit so that I could actually finish it. Luckily, once I was about 70% through, the intrigue kicked back in and I ended up enjoying just how complicated the closing scenes were. Yet, my rating reflects this lull in my experience and my general confusion about what happened. This book is an experience; one I tried to gleam the deeper meaning of but have set to settle on.

If you want a fevered story featuring cannibalism, religious fervor, and a complex web of desire and revulsion, this might be for you. (I also so badly want to know if the author has read Tanith Lee’s Vivia because there are so many little things about this that remind me of Vivia’s opening scenes.)

Thank you Netgalley and Harper Voyager for an ARC to read and review!

I couldn’t get into this. The idea is really cool and I was excited but the execution was just not there. I could t stand the writing style. Too many tangents and way too confusing.

oh man, this won’t be for everyone but it was DEFINITELY for me.

This book can be best summed up as a queer medieval fever dream of a horror story. This book had everything I love in a horror book, and I enjoyed every single second of this wild, rotting, and juicy ride:

•many many many “wtf” moments
•complex and morally grey heroines
•magic that makes no sense but also makes completely perfect sense at the same time
•freaky and super clever antagonists
•moments that are simultaneously horrific and beautiful
•religious overtones
•cannibalism (judge me all you want, but it’s my favorite kind of horror trope)
•yearning and more yearning

The saints were so well written, exceptionally creepy and mysterious and reminded me so much of unseelie fae in a way. And my absolute favorite part, was the crack in the wall under the castle. 10/10 for clever and unsettling characters.

Like I said, I don’t think this is for everyone, but will appeal to horror readers who love their horror weird, unsettling, magical, and stomach churning. Highly recommend, and I will definitely be re reading this again in the future.

Infinite thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early e-copy of The Starving Saints. All opinions are my own!

Reading Starving Saints felt like slipping into a fever dream I never wanted to wake up from. It was dark, unhinged, and beautifully relentless. This was my first medieval horror read, and it completely devoured me in the best way.
The pacing was sharp, pulling me deeper with every chapter, and the world-building and atmosphere were everything I’ve been craving. Caitlin Starling crafts a setting that breathes around you, claustrophobic yet mesmerizing.
The characters? Gloriously flawed, wild, and unhinged. I couldn’t get enough of the 3 sisters.
Honestly, Starving Saints feels ahead of its genre. It’s bold, strange, and hauntingly intelligent. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a wave of nun-centered horror in its wake, each one a little homage to the terrifying brilliance of this story.
3.5/5 ⭐️

This is a dark, atmospheric tale that stands out in the horror genre. While it was different from the typical horror novels I tend to gravitate toward, I found myself thoroughly enjoying it. The novel takes a unique approach to horror and explores themes of cannibalism in a way that I haven't seen before, which is refreshing and adds a distinct flavor to the story.

The setting of The Starving Saints is one of its most compelling aspects. The atmosphere is thick and immersive, drawing the reader into a world that feels unsettling and suffocating. The gothic and eerie ambiance contributes greatly to the story’s tension and sense of dread. It's the kind of setting that keeps you on edge, which is exactly what I look for in a horror novel.

What really made this book stand out to me, though, was the fresh take on the cannibalism storyline. Rather than falling into familiar tropes, Starling crafts something new and unsettling that sets the book apart from other works in the genre. The novel’s exploration of hunger, faith, and the human capacity for both creation and destruction offers a thought-provoking experience that delves deeper into the psychological aspects of horror, making it more than just a story about gruesome acts.

While the themes are dark, the writing itself is engaging, and the characters, though flawed, felt well-developed and real. They each brought something unique to the story, and as they navigated the twisted events that unfolded, I found myself invested in their fates.

A fever dream is an apt description. Although we know almost nothing about the lore of the world and the magic system is a bit squishy, things I normally would take more issue with, it contributes to the confusing, chaotic, fever dream-ness of it all, so I think in this way it works out.
Loved the theming, fae-like qualities of the Saints, and sapphic undertones.
My only complaints are that I found it hard to 100% connect with the 3 main characters. I was almost there, but the final piece was missing somehow. Also, it felt like a few things could have been omitted or shortened to tighten up the pacing from start to finish.

i’m wildly disappointed in how wildly unsatisfying this story was. as it dragged on and on, i kept waiting for something to click, to make itself known — but nothing ever did. there was no point. im confused as to how this reached the publishing stage? as soon as i finished, all i felt was relief and disgruntlement that my time had been wasted. which is so sad for me to write about a book for which i had such high hopes :(

here is the main problem with this book, which has such a promising premise, such intriguing characters: it makes its readers work too hard. this book took me a very long time to read because it tired me out quickly with its overwrought prose, its confusing plot, and its underexplained magic systems. it’s all aesthetics, no substance. it’s as if someone tried to build an entire story off the cover (which is what drew me in in the first place. props to the artist!!!!)

the body horror aspect was very well done - as was the inversion of the reader’s expectations surrounding ser voyne’s tendencies towards domination vs submission. i liked all three perspectives pretty equally. but that’s about it.

thank u to netgalley and harper collins for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review <3

I was confused, I was captivated, I was entranced. Caitlin Starling is definitely an author that works for me with her weird little books. I loved how these characters developed and got weirder. My only complaint? Needed more cannibalism.

I've never imagined that a story about starvation could be so beautiful and rich, but my god, this book proved it's possible. A masterful tale of tragedy that seems the lowest a town can go, only to be proven wrong in the worst possible way, this story takes the reader from aching pity to righteous disgust to agonizing anticipation and every space of emotion between as it weaves through the three heroines' experiences of their world collapsing around them. Phosyne, Voyne, and Treila allowed for such a fine scope of the events within the castle, all with their own personal worries and vendettas and interpretations of the grotesque happenings around them, it was incredible to glide through the story with their eyes. And the invasion of the "Saints", while eerie and gruesome, made for such a fantastic antagonistic force with the opposing powers of adoration-inspiring beauty and ghastly revelry they stirred in the people of Aymar Castle. I still don't completely understand exactly why everything happened the way it did, but I truly cannot be upset about that in the slightest because I feel like I lived the ordeal alongside these three incredible women. The finale had such a powerful impact on me as a former catholic with it's simultaneous embodiment and rejection of faith and idolatry, and this tale is sure to delight horror fans everywhere.

I was so excited when I got approved for this story on NetGalley, but it fell surprisingly flat for me. I am a Gothic literature major and thought this would be along that vein, but it just felt like a fever dream throughout. Although, I will say that seems to be the point of the story, but it did not work for me.

That being said I do think this would work for friends of mine that love books of this similar technique and Starling writes beautifully and I know people that would adore this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for the e-ARC copy in exchange for an honest review!

Thanks to Caitlin Starling, Avon and Harper Voyager, and Netgalley for the ARC!

In all honestly, I picked this from NetGalley in an attempt to chase the high I got from reading Christopher Buehlman's medieval horror "Between Two Fires". It's safe to say I'm still shopping around after reading this one, but as far as atmosphere goes, I would say it's relatively comparable. My problem then mostly lays with the writing. I'm not sure if some of the fever-dream style writing was completely intentional, but it ended up not working for me most of the time. Becoming increasingly delusional is a pretty central theme, so maybe it's supposed to be written in a way that makes you feel similarly to it's characters? All I know is that I had a hard time grasping what was actually going on half the time and in this way it's challenging, but not necessarily bad. I feel like how I am as a reader though, I really have to be in the mood. I also think that ultimately the singular setting and rotating characters would have been better served in a novella, or at least a shorter, more concise novel.

The highlight of the book for me was of course the hot lesbian knight but I digress.

Weird in a good way! This one was creepy and stuck with me. Some parts dragged a bit, but the vibe was solid and the writing pulled me in. Definitely not your average horror, but I was into it. Loved the pink copy I got in my box book though from aardvark!!! also who doesn't love a medieval vibe!

what an absolute delight. unlike anything i've ever read, and so unique i know better than to go out and try to find something similar (a blessing and a curse!). it will stay with me for a long, long time, this might honestly be one of the best horror books of all times for me. it just hits every note right, it's SO delicious, i love anything that knows how to be full of horror and lust and love and rage and strength at the same time. truthfully at this point in time it's hard to sell me on "cannibalism as ____" but the starving saints does in fact serve the "cannibalism as ____" we are all longing for. loved the trio of characters so much but i also adored the saints, there's something about medieval horror that just does what nothing else can. this felt like the best kind of fever dream, it transported me completely elsewhere and kept me hungry (ha) for more while also genuinely spooking me a bit which is hard to do. great kind of esoteric atmosphere but it's only as successfully trippy because it is soooo good at the very real gore as well. HONESTLY will revisit it and pray at its altar for inspiration and a crumb of the talent on display there. also stunned this is the same author as last to leave the room, that is incredible range. miss starling you have my sword forever