Caitlin Starling’s fourth novel, The Starving Saints, is packed full of everything you’ve come to expect from this author: atmosphere for days, queer women being awful (complimentary), body horror, unpleasantly small spaces, and extreme acts of fealty.

Trapped in a besieged castle, with two weeks’ worth of rations remaining, the people of Aymar are waiting for a miracle. They’ve already had one, when the heretic witch Phosyne purified the castle’s water, using methods that remain mysterious even to her. But water isn’t enough to sustain the siege’s survivors, and the king demands that Phosyne now find a way to create food out of nothing. To ensure that she’s working as hard as she can, he assigns his most reliable knight, Ser Voyne, to watch over Phosyne’s progress. A third POV character, the servant girl Treila, prowls the castle doing an illicit trade in rats and plotting her revenge against Ser Voyne for executing her father five years ago.

This premise, obviously, rules. I love it when people are stuck together in places they can’t leave: bottle episodes, generation ships, boarding schools. I get a little frisson of pleasure every time I remember the moment in The Thing where Kurt Russell says, “Nobody trusts anybody now, and we’re all very tired.” Nobody in Aymar Castle trusts anybody now, and they’re all so, so, so very tired. Cut off from her former beliefs, Phosyne can’t even attend the Priory church services where everyone else gets to taste a precious drop of honey as sacrament. Her miracle with the water has been attributed to the Priory (her former religious order) out of fear that the castle’s inhabitants wouldn’t trust the cisterns if they knew Phosyne was the one who purified them. Ser Voyne’s presence in Phosyne’s workshop is intended as further incentive, as if there could be any stronger incentive than Phosyne’s own death and the deaths of everyone within Aymar’s walls.

As Aymar waits for relief from outside their walls or the miracle of restored food within them, a different wonder appears. Their god, the Constant Lady, appears inside the castle gates, flanked by three attendant Saints. Nobody opened the gates to let them in. They did not fight their way through. They simply appeared, and they have brought with them gifts, rich banquets of fresh food to a starving populace. Though a few protest that it’s too good to be true—Prioress Jacynde for one, the ever-suspicious Treila for another—the castle’s inhabitants are too hungry to ask questions, and soon they are all under the sway of the (presumed) Constant Lady.

The Starving Saints is a book about the allures, and then the price, of desire. All three of our main characters recognize the dangers posed to the castle by the (supposed) Constant Lady. Yet they’re still terribly vulnerable to the temptations of the Lady and her Saints, as soon as they’re offered a quick path to the thing they most desire. For Phosyne it’s knowledge; for Treila, justice; for Ser Voyne, a righteous cause to serve. They are not wrong to have these wants, not even necessarily wrong to depart from prevailing moral norms in their pursuit of them. But what the Lady offers is the ends without the means. This is a book that argues for the intellectual and moral work that goes into attaining what you want. When our characters fail to think critically about what they’re doing, when they stray too far from the moral calculus that takes other people’s lives into account, that’s when they’re most susceptible to falling into abusive and destructive acts.

Nuns (and other trappings of Catholicism) are having a bit of a moment in SFF (and, I suppose, more broadly in the culture, what with getting a new Pope right on the heels of the release of Conclave last year). Lina Rather, Meredith Mooring, Tamsyn Muir, and Gabrielle Buba have all written books that explore the tensions that arise when you live within a patriarchal power structure that teaches the value and method of pursuing moral truth, yet demands that its adherents ignore any truths that fall outside of an approved set of conclusions. These are themes I love and adore. I want to bathe in these themes. I want to do a keg stand where I chug so much of these themes I end up in the hospital with theme poisoning.

The Starving Saints… eh, doesn’t so much. Starling keeps taking the bite out of her moral dilemmas before they have a chance to get started. Before the Lady and her Saints arrive, the castle’s leaders discuss the need for cannibalism, which (spoiler) does happen later on, in far more gruesome excess than the king had proposed. This is a major taboo, and it should feel like an urgent moral matter for the characters to grapple with. But Ser Voyne, the main voice speaking against the cannibalism-for-survival plan, has eaten human flesh before, when “they [were] pinned down in bleak winters, in blighted fields… But that was different.” We later find out that Treila has also done cannibalism in the past. In a setting where two of our three protagonists (!) have eaten human meat to survive, it’s hard to feel that a major boundary will be crossed if the inhabitants of Aymar Castle have to do it again now.

For a book about gods false and true, The Starving Saints shows little interest in its characters’ religious faith. Treila, Phosyne, and Ser Voyne all have to grapple with the inadequacies of the moral frameworks they’ve been operating under. Yet this happens almost entirely without reference to the dominant religion, even though the Priory is supposed to be a vital organizing principle of this society. We don’t get a clear explanation for why Phosyne’s new research was so incompatible with the Priory. It’s not even clear what the Priory itself believes, although one gets hints now and then. Phosyne has lost her faith so completely that she can’t remember what it was like to have it, yet the question “faith in what?” remains uncertain. In the Constant Lady, who we later learn even Prioress Jacynde doesn’t believe cares about her flock? In the alchemical and scientific research methods the Priory teaches? Something else?

Still, Phosyne’s frantic, messy research spoke to me, not least because it’s clear that she’d be doing it whether the community was starving to death or not. She doesn’t want to die, obviously, but the main thing she wants is to know. The book distinguishes between the Priory’s methodical alchemy and the intuitive, bargaining, elemental magic Phosyne is struggling to discover:

This is how the learning works: side-glimpsed realizations, nothing direct, but always leaning toward greater understanding… If Ser Voyne was here, there’s no way Phosyne could explain it in a way that makes sense, but it does. It does.

As the book proceeds, the reader also begins to catch side glimpses of how the magic works, and how the castle might be saved. The (apparent) Constant Lady and her Saints are old, and dangerous, and they don’t operate on morality, but on bargains and elemental balance—and it’s perhaps no surprise that the rigidly religious and scientific Priory is unequipped to deal with it when it arrives. If Shirley Jackson had written Game of Thrones, I like to imagine that The Starving Saints is what she’d have produced. It’s a meaty, troubling novel with even more cannibalism than its description led me to expect. I reiterate that at least two, probably all three, point-of-view characters have known the taste of human flesh, and you know for yourself if that’s something you’re into. God forbid women do anything.

The very first thing that popped into my head as I sat down to write a review for this book was the iconic quote from Lady Gaga talking about the House of Gucci film: "I don't believe in the glorification of murder. I do believe in the empowerment of women." It's giving 'I support women's rights and wrongs'. It's giving 'Yes queen, satiate your hunger'. It's giving 'cannibalism as a metaphor for "unnatural" hunger'.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, but Aymar Castle are unprepared for the rescue brought to their doors when their beloved Saints arrive through gates that never opened. The Constant Lady brings salvation, but at a cost; one that only grows darker and heavier as time goes on.

This was an incredible story. I loved the distinct voices of our three leading ladies (unsurprisingly to anyone who knows me, I loved the ex-nun "madwoman" Phosyne the most), I found the world building engaging and the pacing of the story was practically perfect. Often times I didn't want to put it down, and when I wasn't reading, I was thinking about what could possibly be coming next, and I never managed to get it right.

If you are a fan of powerful and unhinged women, sapphic longing, intriguing power dynamics, and the many shades of horror that color this book, The Starving Saints is a must read.

This book definitely started out slow for the first several chapters. I was bored, but I gave it a chance it DID NOT DISAPPOINT! I was absolutely absorbed into the world of this book. I would think about it when I would dream and still occasionally do. Do not let the first few chapters fool you into giving up. It is a Sapphic situation, but it is only the yearning and longing, so no smut, There is heavy magic and the ending left me yearning for more. After I got absorbed, I did not want to be let go. Absolutely amazing story writing and I hope there might be some kind of sequel, at least offhand or something from an outside point of view.
Also, this book has some gory descriptions and corpse mutilation and cannibalism, and f that is not your style, definitely recommend to avoid it, however to me, this was not an issue and added to the intrigue and horror.

4.25

setting: aymar (fictional)
Rep: three sapphic protagonists

this was a wild weird ride and I dug it! did I always understand what was going on? no, but it worked for me loved phosyne, treila and voyne!

4.5⭐️s rounded up for Goodreads

In true Starling fashion, The Starving Saints is a bit of a slow burn, supernatural, horror-fantasy. And as always with Starling's books, I feel like I need a re-read. Like, this is probably a 5 star read, but my brain didn't fully retain and/or appreciate what I experienced.
I went in fairly blind, as I tend to do, and (SPOILERS) medieval delirium with both accidental and purposeful cannibalism was definitely a fantastically gross surprise.
Starling doesn't write the same book twice (each is wildly different and original).
However, I often ask myself these questions regarding Starling's characters.
"Do I like them?!"
"Should I like them?!"
"What is wrong with me?!"
Because yes, I end up loving them for one reason or another. They're always interesting, intelligent, and often morally grey. Phosyne, Voyne, and Treila are beautifully flawed. Aymar Castle and the Saints are a fever dream.


Thanks to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager | Harper Voyager for the eARC!

I loved this book. It was delicious, creepy and unsettling, with an eerie setting, gruesome scenes and tension to spare. The plot and magic system were pretty unique and all three main characters were all fleshed out and distinct. I really grew invested in learning about their past and seeing their individual journeys, plus their unique relationships to each other. I recommend for horror fans looking for story with cannibalism, queer knights and nuns, creepy bees and lots of madness.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆ (4/5)
“The Starving Saints” is a feverish medieval horror that blends visceral cannibalism with haunting, surreal atmosphere. With three compelling women caught in a siege-turned-madness, the book delivers intense emotions, tense power dynamics, and unsettling imagery. It may get chaotic at times, but its raw energy and striking characters make it a memorable, immersive read.

If you want a fully immersive escape from reality this is your book! The story begins with a castle and its people under siege. Things are becoming extremely desperate and then “help” arrives. Is it really help, however, or will the people find themselves in a different kind of desperation?

The world building of this book was amazing. There are some fantasy books I can flip through because it’s the same story with different names. This book, however, built an entire world where I could see myself in while reading. The best books make you forget you’re reading a book and this is one of them.

The character development was also excellent. There were a wide variety of characters in this book and I appreciated that even the side characters were given page time as the main characters. Speaking of the main characters, they were fully thought out and had real depth.

I highly suggest this book if you’re looking for a fantasy with some meat on its bones (no pun intended).

This was such a fever dream and I loved every single second of it.

I think for me there was a really great development of the three main characters. They were each distinct and uniquely their own in such a fascinatingly built world. With different motivations and past traumas, they each navigated the misfortunes falling upon them all in very different ways. I thought the way they navigated the castle and its inhabitants, and more specifically EACH OTHER was really well done. I rooted for each of them at different points and never knew which the direction the story was going to take place. Kept me captivated the entire time.

I was lucky enough to also get to listen to the audio while simultaneously reading and it made the experience that much more captivating.

I found myself captivated by the antagonists and without giving anything away - I wanted to know more!

Definitely wonderful story - bizarre and odd and such a trip. It's grim and dark and eerie in all the best ways and I would definitely read more from this author!

A wonderfully woven medieval horror! As someone who has not delved into medieval horror very much I was unsure of where my interest would fall, but Caitlin Starling has been on my radar since I read The Death of Jane Lawrence - and it did not disappoint. If you want a dark, ravenous horror that will creep up on you I HIGHLY recommend.

This book was transporting but I didn't understand how the heroines won so I found the ending unsatisfying.

A gothic fantasy horror with body gore and cannibalism sounds like the perfect combo, and it would have been, but unfortunately this story was poorly executed. This fever dream of a book had me losing the plot every other chapter. I do love a book with all vibes and no plot but this one did not work for me.

Thank you for an early copy in exchange for an honest review!

This book was so disappointing. The premise is right up my alley and I thought I was going to devour it but unfortunately I dragged it through 340 pages. Most of the time I had no idea what was happening but I’m used to weird books and I trust the writer but in this case for some reason it didn’t deliver. It is not the writing style, she is good. But something about the pace felt off. The world built by the author is unclear (also, I thought this was historical fiction with a dark gothic twist but it is actually Fantasy) The characters are strong but I felt they were disconnected with the world they lived (again, subpar world-building)
The best thing in this book is the cover design and the choice of font. Great job with that!

Oh this one made my skin crawl. It was a fantastic pride read, and had some of the wonderful claustrophobic horror of the author's previous The Luminous Dead with a cast of compelling, if not particularly likable, characters. The descriptions were excellent.

My Selling Pitch:
Hannibal but it’s medieval lesbians vs demons? faeries? your CCD teacher? A visual banger with a slapshod plot. Still kinda worth the read imo.

Pre-reading:
Publishing said Samantha’s reading nuns this year. Whoever made this cover needs a raise. Sheesh.

(obviously potential spoilers from here on)
Thick of it:
Corkindril

Oh lordy, what kinda monster she feedin’?

The names in this book are crazy.

I’m reading this with the tone of The Favorite’s Elle Fanning.

Oh, I’m into this. I love a Gothic.

Oh bitch, is this sapphic? (Yes. Samantha, read a blurb. I’m begging you.)

Also, if you tell me blond knight, I will only see Jamie Lannister. I’m sorry.

gambeson

I’m already like this is what that Lady Macbeth novel should’ve been.

They told me this was slow. This is all gas no brakes. (I mean it is slow, but it’s consistently slow and doesn’t feel slow because it’s so interesting.)

Title drop

Detritus sin x2

They're eating the dogs

I think it’s in the honey. Like some groupthink possession? Because they’ve made such a point that the two girls who aren’t enthralled don’t eat the honey.

Is this a Planet Midnight situation where they stole Treila‘s face when she looked through the crack to hell? (Not quite, bitch.)

I’m not convinced they’re eating vegetables. I think they’re eating something else that they’ve been fooled into thinking is fresh food because of the hallucinations. (Unclear but heavily implied.)

Some sort of hallucination between the kitchen water and the honey?

Not baby birding it to her!

I feel like she’s not doing anything mystical but instead it’s just science. Like is this some sort of iron sulphur reaction? (I used to be in STEM, can you even believe with commentary like this lol?)

Detritus times 3

There’s so much foreboding-
You are hungry and I respect hunger- to this book and I like it so much.

Haha gayyyyy
Also what the fuck is happening. What a banger of a gothic horror, but three unreliable narrators is wh-ild.

I wonder if they’re the 4 horseman of the apocalypse somehow?

It’s def people.

I feel like the fig is an eyeball.

You didn’t have to spell out the explanation. I got it the first time.

This is such erotic hunger horror. It’s so well done.

Treila is a FORCE.

MY JAW DROPPED. This book fucks.

Propolis

Where does the Leo guy fit into this? He’s been noticeably absent.

I hope we get an explanation and not just teehee, supernatural. (SIGH.)

Detritus x4

It’s very Hannibal the show.

This book is so hard to read. I think it’s because it’s all visuals. I think it would translate well to an a24 film.
Very Midsommar, you know?

Hannibal but it’s medieval lesbians vs demons.

Detritus x5

My sub has a sub hahaha

I’m so mixed on it. It’s such a banger, but also what the fuck even happened?

Post-reading:
I don’t think this works the best as a book. I think it’d make a banger a24 horror film with Florence Pugh and Gwendoline Christie.

If you’re the kind of reader whose imagination generates a feature film when you read and you like a vibey gothic, I think you’ll fuck HEAVY with this. If you can’t produce your own visuals, I think you’ll hate your time with this. It’s all imagery and juicy backstory setup with no, and I do mean no follow through on a plot backbone.

3 unreliable narrators all experiencing a fever dream is a choice. It is not lacking in the psychological horror department. Concrete answers or a cohesive plot structure? No, nada, zip, zilch. And as far as those visuals go, they do feel like a direct rip from Hannibal. Bees, shrikes, cannibalism- it’s all incredibly striking, but if you’ve watched the show…I think Fuller did a lot of this book’s heavy lifting for it. I just don’t find much fault with that because I loved those visuals the first time I encountered them, so glossing them with sapphic horror doesn’t exactly make me cranky.

The seductive, consumptive horror in this is worth reading. If you like messy power dynamics in the bedroom and healthy skepticism of religious idolatry, it’s gonna work for you. It just is.

Where it fell apart for me was the central conflict. I don’t like supernatural as explanation. I think it’s sloppy. I think it’s lazy. I need my monsters to have clearly defined edges, not a rule book that shifts as needed. It makes the villains come off as so overpowered, and then you feel cheated when the everymen triumph over them. The real horror being that the call is coming from inside the house? Stunnin’. We were never actually in any danger of leaving because the enemy packed up and left while we were sleeping and no one thought to check? Beyond idiotic. The general public never factors into this book. It’s really just three lesbians vs the world. And that requires too much suspension of disbelief for me to buy into. Desperate people are cutthroat and sneaky. It’s hard to believe that Treila is the only capable one in the entire castle.

And it gets repetitive. We didn’t need to squirm through that tunnel passage over and over and over again. Your audience has a limited attention span before their eyes start glazing over. Anything offered more than twice is gonna induce some skim reading. And with a book this slow, any lull is gonna make it hard for the audience to want to pick it up again. Similarly, I hate when a book drops a scene that’s all subtext, and then has a character’s inner monologue summarize and explain why that “nothing” dialogue was so significant only a few paragraphs later. Just trust your reader to pick up what you’re putting down. If they can’t grasp the subtleties, they’re not your intended audience. I just don’t think it’s worth dumbing down a text for better mass market appeal because if they can’t grasp it the first time around, they’re write offs. They’re not gonna like the book because you’ve already frustrated them by making it too confusing, and they’re not gonna change that opinion even if you start spoon feeding it to them. And the people who like to work when they read are gonna sit there eye rolling like yes, yes, I already got that. Can we move this plot forward already? Authors kneecap themselves whenever they do this. Just pick an audience and move.

And while this book is so very slow, I was invested and interested the whole time. I was dying to find out what was really going on. It took me forever to get through, and it was far too easy to get distracted while reading this book, but I still enjoyed my time with it even if I do think the ending is such a cop out. I think if it’s your genre, it’s worth the read, just go in knowing you’re gonna have to work, bitch to understand the novel, and the ending’s probably going to disappoint you.

Who should read this:
Hannibal fans
The girls and the gays
Religious horror fans
If you’ve got trypophobia or a thing with bees and want to be scared
Bunny fans
A24 horror fans

Ideal reading time:
Summer

Do I want to reread this:
Lowkey kinda. I feel like it would be a trippy book club book.

Would I buy this:
Yes. I like the cover, and I’d loan it out to the right audience

Similar books:
* The Unworthy by Augustina Bazterrica-dystopian horror, religious commentary, queer
* The Lamb by Lucy Rose-horror, queer, cannibalism
* Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin-dystopian horror, queer, cannibalism
* Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica-dystopian horror, cannibalism
* American Rapture by C. J. Leede-dystopian horror, religious commentary, queer
* Private Rites by Julia Armfield-dystopian horror, classic retelling, family drama, queer
* Bunny by Mona Awad-psychological horror, dark academia, queer
* Stag Dance by Torrey Peters-historical, folktale retelling, horror, queer, short story collection
* I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman-dystopian, social commentary
* The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig-fantasy romance, camp, religious commentary
* Lucy Undying by Kiersten White-horror, Dracula retelling, queer
* Grey Dog by Elliot Gish-historical horror, queer
* Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid-historical magical realism, classic retelling

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The whole thing was a disturbing religious fever dream. From the start it was the most uneasy medieval ride. But I enjoyed it. Medieval books always make me uneasy because I know I wouldn’t survive. This felt like I was constricted in this castle and I couldn’t get out. I also listened to the audiobook, and omg it made it even more atmospherically unsettling. I’m also adding this book to my rotation of comfort reads.

This was an absolute astounding fever-dream novel I loved every second of the depravity, yearning, and bloody mess. Add some cult religion and it's pretty much a recipe for all my favorite things wrapped into one book.
It is a little slow on the uptake and had me worried for a moment that it wouldn't live up to the hype it was portraying. But don't worry; once it gets started it literally does not let up until the very last page. The worldbuilding outside the castle is limited but it only makes the setting that much more claustrophobic for readers. I found myself enjoying the limited scope and reading as the 3 women skirted around the danger at every single corner. Everything from the Saints themselves to the horrors of human nature, and the descriptions of religion and power dynamics were crafted in a maximalist way but still kept hold of the plot and the tension.
Speaking of these women..... The YEARNING??????? I cannot even start to describe how obsessed I was with this dynamic of these three. There were some "interesting" arrangements they found themselves in and I was biting at my Kindle the entire time LMAO. Each of the three MC's had incredible depth and emotion, and their lives intertwined in a messy but functional way.

I lost my kindle for two weeks while reading this ARC and the entire time we were apart I could not stop thinking about this book.

This is a gorgeous and horrific piece of fiction- It has some of the most compelling horror I've read in a long time mixed with characters who will stick with me for a long time. Definitely recommended for fans of The Locked Tomb or Plain Bad Heroines. I wish I could recommend it to more people but the beautiful brutality of the book that is a draw for me is probably not for everyone!

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for the arc!

Aymar Castle is under siege and food is about to run out. Hope is all but lost when a miracle occurs: The Constant Lady and her Saints appear, bringing with them abundance and cheer. Only three very different women, an ex-nun-turned-scientist, a knight of the kingsguard and a servant girl on a mission, seem to be able to see the truth of their situation, that they are in far more danger now than ever before.

When I first read the summary for The Starving Saints I thought it must have been written for me. Medieval castle under siege, fever dream horror, sapphic and full of bees? Sign me the hell up!

And, to start with the positives, a lot of that was present. There’s a lot of interesting yet subtle world building on display here. The religion was interesting and interestingly handled. The looming starvation and dread was captured very well, the tension in the first chapters is palpable. At its best the imagery was sublime, both the gore and cannibalism (another favourite horror staple) as well as the more existential dread. The sapphic energy was off the charts.

But, sadly, for me it didn’t really end up working.

My biggest issue, I think, is that I just wish it had gone further. Further in the horror, for one thing, which considering the amount of gore feels a bit weird to say, but, apart from a few times, it all felt rather distant and sanitized. There were definitely moments that worked but a lot of it felt like just doing the motions.
I also don’t feel the fever dream quality went far enough, either. Here again there was certainly enough imagery that should have made it work, and parts did, but in a lot of ways it just felt too conventional. For fever-dream-horror, the antagonists felt far too comprehensible, even human. The plot, stripped of the imagery, also felt predictable. Frustratingly, parts that were less logical, or at least less explained, seemed mostly just to exist to serve as dei ex machina. I never felt like our main characters themselves were in any real danger. Meanwhile, aside from one or two characters, the rest of the castle was so unimportant that it didn’t really matter what happened to them. So a lot of things just left me cold.
Even the main characters didn’t feel, pardon the pun, entirely fleshed out. The book has three POV characters and, while theoretically they were all completely different from each other, too often their voices ended up the same. Certain actions from certain characters didn’t make sense. I guess that could be chalked up to fever dream logic but, again, it’s a little frustrating. It also made the romance feel a bit underwhelming. There were moments that worked, good concepts under there, but again I was never really invested.

All in all The Starving Saints had its moments and I certainly don’t feel worse off for having read it, but it left me a little cold and my hopes rather dashed.

Caitlin Starling's author bio on Goodreads says "She’s always on the lookout for new ways to inflict insomnia" and boy did I have some crazy insomnia after this book! It took me a bit to get into it, but things started to pick up pace once we're introduced to Treila. Within the oppressive walls of Aymar castle, a populace is under siege, out of rations and starving without hope...until the sudden arrival of strange guests. That's as much as I can share without spoilers, but this book is well worth the ride. I loved the three main protagonists, their messy sapphic entanglements and their character growth in this book. The plot wobbles a bit in the last third of the book, but it's a fun, compelling read nonetheless. Starling does an excellent job of weaving this nightmare together, you'll wince as she pulls on a thread you'd rather she left alone, even as you're mesmerized by the strange visions and bloody, hedonistic tableaus throughout this book. Also 5/5 for making honey absolutely unappetizing. On that note, I recommend reading this book on an empty stomach.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an ARC!