The Lost reliquary offers a suspenseful plot, two drastically different but equally interesting main characters, and a foray into questions of religion and devotion. The world is tightly woven, and I found the chapter epigraphs useful for providing extra glimpses into the religious orders at the heart of the book prior to Lys and Nolan’s time. The plot was well-balanced between world-building and action sequences, so the book never felt too slow or bogged down at a given moment. As characters, Lys and Nolan have extremely differing personalities, but those juxtapositions ultimately make watching their rivalry unfolding into friendship satisfying as they learn to trust each other.

The main difficulty I had with the book was possible limitations from it being a first-person POV from Lys’s perspective—at times, her character comes across as quite a bit younger than she actually is, with one-line quips and a repetitive inner monologue that sometimes borders on teen angst, particularly in the beginning and middle of the book. As she grows as a character, she becomes less cliché, which made it less tedious getting through her inner monologue as the story went on. With a fascinating world and dramatic conclusion, I’m looking forward to book 2!

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the eARC in exchange for an honest review

Lyndsay Ely’s first original novel, The Lost Reliquary is a surprisingly dense and rewarding tale of the perils of fanatic worship. A darkened fantasy tale of the complex relationship between worshiper and deity, this novel is packed with plenty of action, suspense, and thought-provoking commentary!

While I mostly stick to authors I have previous experience with, or come highly recommended on various online forums in dark fantasy and scifi spaces, I will occasionally pick up something solely by a cover, or a blurb, or the plot summary. Ely’s The Lost Reliquary piqued my interest in all categories. When mention was made that this book/series was for fans of Godkiller and The Locked Tomb, both of which are known favorites, taking up this novel seemed like an easy pick!

The Lost Reliquary, kicks off the Divine Thrall series and follows the trials and tribulations of the novitiate Lystrata. Lys is a highly trained warrior disciple, part of the Dawn cloister, in devoted worship of the fire goddess Tempestra-Innara. When tasked with locating the titular “lost reliquary”, a weapon to fatally injure the last surviving goddess, Lys is forced to team up with Nolan, a fanatic potentiate from the rival Dusk cloister. The hunt sends Lys and Nolan across the breadth of Tempestra’s holy empire.

Except, Lys wants to steal the reliquary for herself, to kill the goddess!

The opening sequences of The Lost Reliquary fully set me up into an antagonistic view, judging this story to be yet another YA-adjacent darkened fantasy, with all its magic-school tropes and cheesy romantic subplots. My enjoyment of this story only heightened after the author suitably chastised me via a complex tale with conflicting motivations, a rich lived-in world, and dense characterization.

The plot follows Lys and Nolan as they are forced to traverse the Divine Lands together, following clues to the location of the reliquary, as their own faith and motivations are questioned by seeing the effects of Tempestra’s tyrannical rule. Lys internal conflict of indoctrinated-laced-with-magic faith and her own desire to break the chains and attain freedom, as well as her relationship with the purely fanatic Nolan. Nolan’s faith is also questioned as he is forced to leave the comfort of the cloisters to see the long-lasting effects of Tempestra’s rule with a flame-fist.

Ely creates an expansive world, with varied landscapes with their own cultures and mythologies, harkening back to the world-breaking conflict between the gods, from which Tempestra emerged victorious and sole divine power. Her inclusion of various factions with their own heretical worship, added layers of detail to the world, and fueled Lys’ and Nolan’s progression in its own way. Adding in side-characters with their own altruistic, selfish, and purely cruel motivations, added depth that continued to surprise me!

I enjoyed many elements of the magic systems and worldbuilding laid out in The Lost Reliquary, the bonding of divine essence to mortal flesh to yield a walking god like Tempestra-Innara, set up the plot expansion nicely in future entries. The pacing felt comfortable with adrenaline fueled action set pieces interspersed with slower worldbuilding, and even spent some time with quieter chapters exploring Lys’ internal struggle and navigating her complex feelings toward Nolan.

My only complaint with The Lost Reliquary was that Ely chose to make Lys your bog-standard YA protagonist with quippy one-liners, and “zinger” dialog, which pushed the prose and novel closer towards YA territory. Thankfully the plot, with its myriad twists and turns, friendships and betrayals, kept the balance and nudged it back into New Adult darkened fantasy. I see where the parallels could be drawn between her style and Godkiller and The Locked Tomb, but those series were simply superior products.

Lyndsay Ely’s debut original story, The Lost Reliquary, overturned my old-man-grumbles-at-new-fantasy expectations to present an enjoyable story with plenty of twists and turns, in a fresh world, with engaging characters and a push-forward plot. Any book that can surprise me with the quality of its elements is a win for me, and this book definitely qualifies. Ely may have just garnered a new fan, as I await for the sequel.

This is perfectly well written – it might even be great, though personally I found the mc’s very modern voice really, really distracting. (A modern voice is fine if the tone of the whole book allows for it, whether or not it technically makes sense. But in a Taking Itself Seriously High/Epic Fantasy? Nope, sorry, I hate it.) I didn’t click with it, mainly because of Lys’ first-person narration but also because Lost Reliquary didn’t seem to be doing anything new. After the first 20%, I started skimming – and was really disappointed by what I found.

Because I do, honestly, think it’s well-written – hence the four stars. But it’s also very, very predictable. If you’re a Fantasy lifer, you can call it from the synopsis, and you will be entirely correct: ~spoilers~ I saw literally all of that coming. And I imagine a lot of others will too: we’ve read this book before. A few times!

If you don’t mind knowing where a book’s going – and you don’t mind a High Fantasy mc who says ‘yay’ – then I think this could be a great read. If you’ve never read a story with a similar set-up, then you might not predict the plot, in which case, this is definitely a great read! Because that’s the only critique I have of it – everything else I disliked, it was just a matter of personal preferences and taste, not objective flaws. (And most of those things were nitpicky, unlikely to bother most other readers. For example, Lys is very anti-Tempestra, anti-fundamentalist, anti-cruelty – all of which is great! But I have no idea why she’s like that when she went through the same upbringing all her peers did. In fairness, perhaps that came up more in some part that I skimmed.) The prose is good; the worldbuilding is easily up to the standard of most High Fantasies; the mc is sympathetic and quippy; the aesthetic is not displeasing. The endgame of the heretics was really freaking cool, probably my favourite part of the book – and the reason I’m interested in reading the sequel.

Because sure, this instalment was very predictable – but I have no clue where the story is going next, and with that endgame I mentioned in play? I think I could put up with Lys’ voice, to see where that’s going.

So this is an extremely odd DNF – I read 20%, skimmed most of the rest, read some of the more pivotal moments and the ending, and I’d like to pick up the sequel when it comes out. So this isn’t exactly a recommendation – but it’s not *not* a recommendation, and it *is* a recommendation for the next book!

Probably my strangest DNF review ever...

Unique fantasy vibes .. A goddess seeks a reliquary to kill agod and gain her power. Interesting theme and beautifully written and detailed

I had a lot of fun with this book! It’s starts off with a bang. I found the middle to be a little bit redundant, and it kinda lost me a bit. However, the ending reeled me back in. There’s a ton of religious politics interwoven into this tale, and I found the philosophical aspect of this to be so intriguing. I’d say this is a great debut! No news on how many books are going to be in this series yet, but I’m excited to see where it’s going to lead us.

This is a truly impressive adult debut for The Locked Tomb fans (though it’s less dense and lighter hearted in my opinion). The narration and storybuilding are compelling, and that ending is straight up nasty work.

I didn't really like being thrown into the action and then having to catch up to figure out what was going on. I never had much of a connection to any of the characters. The plot never became interesting to me and I was tempted to dnf quite a few times. The epigraphs didn't really add much either. I never felt any chemistry or the slightest bit of affection between the main characters so the motivations make no sense. I will not be reading the next book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Saga press for the gifted earc in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this fantasy. It is interesting, has aspects I have never seen before. It is dark and also funny! This is a highly recommend for me. 4.5 stars.

The cover of this book initially drew me in and I knew I wanted to know more about who was on the cover and what their story was. Once I started reading this I was instantly drawn in and it hooked me right away. Divine warrior, Lys is struggling with her loyalty to her goddess and this theme is prominent throughout the book. Lys is chosen to hunt down the heretics and find an ancient reliquary alongside another potentiate from a rival cloister. Lys and Nolan face many challenges on their quest along with betrayal, secrets and ultimately a truce/friendship.

The plot was easy to follow along, filled with action, plot twists and witty conversation. Overall I really enjoyed this one and I'll definitely be looking to read the next book upon release.

Thank you to NetGalley and Saga Press | S&S/Saga Press for access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Lost Reliquary follows Lys, a divine warrior, who has been in servitude to her Goddess since she was a child. When the Goddess is almost killed in an assassination attempt, Lys and another warrior from a rival cloister must team up to find the heretics at fault and track down a lost reliquary they are using that has the power to kill gods. While her rival Nolan, is unyieldingly faithful to their Goddess, Lys finds herself having to hide her waning devotion.

I wanted to read this when I saw that it was compared to Gideon the Ninth and while the main character has the same fast sarcasm and dark humor, this book really sets itself apart with the character development it has throughout the book. This is less an action packed fantasy than it is a study of characters and their motives. There are many times throughout this book where we are spending time in the mind and thoughts of Lys while she struggles with her faith and how she ended up in servitude to the Goddess as well as her eyes opening to what is happening in the world outside of her cloister.

While we also do not go into a huge exploration of the world they are in as we are mostly seeing everything from the lens of Lys, we do walk away with a large understanding of the different religious and heretic groups as well as the different Gods.

I really enjoyed this book despite the slow middle, and after the ending I look forward to a sequel. Thank you to Saga Press and NetGalley for the arc of this book.

4⭐ for an incredibly unique story filled with secret heresy, betrayals, plot twists and an FMC with the best potty mouth I've read in awhile.

Tropes:
✨ Enemies to friends
✨ Secret heresy/heavy religious themes
✨ Quest to find a long-lost object
✨ Divinity possession
✨ Renaissance-like setting

The author's prose and writing style is absolutely right up my alley - her dark humor and sarcasm inserts were hilarious to me and I felt like a really rich world was developed here as we slowly learn about the previous defeated Gods and the dictator-like religious order of the last remaining "Butcher Goddess" that rules over the country.

The story took me a bit longer than usual to get through and I think that's just because the nature of a long drawn out journey and the author really taking the time to flesh out Lys' inner thoughts and the developing dynamic between her and Nolan made things seem slow at times. There isn't constant action in this story, it's definitely slow developing in some of its reveals, but there are a handful of betrayals, plot twists I never saw coming and moments that truly kept me on the edge of my seat, especially with the ending.

Because the world was so richly developed in the different rankings of the religious Orders, different heretic groups, the cities we traveled to and all of the side characters that would come up later in importance, a few things did get lost in the sauce for me. There were at least two moments where a chapter ended on a shocking reveal of a past character reappearing and I didn't even remember who they were, making the impact a bit lessened for me.

I also think this book would REALLY benefit from a glossary depicting all the different Gods and religious terms/orders but maybe that will come in the final editions.

Lys is such a funny and complex FMC, I loved every insult and quip that came out of her mouth, especially with how it pertained to our stoic, truly devoted Nolan. The internal struggles we see with Lys battling the duty that was forced upon her since a child, and her growing hatred and heresy, is really well done - though one particular ending reveal was a little confusing, so much so that it confused our own main character. But she's definitely a fun character to read about, especially from her own perspectives. I was unsure if there would be an enemies to lovers moment in this book, but there were definitely no romantic hints here.

With a storyline as this for the first book in a series, I didn't really know what to expect with how we would end up and I still don't know how I entirely feel about the ending, though I can definitely say it was unexpected. It's certainly intriguing to see this new direction and how the new dynamic between Nolan and Lys will develop and I will definitely continue this series down the line!

Thank you to NetGalley and Saga Press Books for the e-ARC copy in exchange for my honest review! All opinions are my own.

I went into this book completely blind and I was shocked by how much I loved it! Any book with a baddie FMC is an instant YES from me. The world building and character development was top notch – Lys has quickly become one of my favorite FMC’s. This book heavily depicts themes of the gods, devotion, duty, and faith. I found it intriguing and will absolutely read more by Ely.

𝓣𝓻𝓸𝓹𝓮𝓼 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓥𝓲𝓫𝓮𝓼:
⚔️Epic Fantasy
⚔️Rivals to Friends
⚔️Badass FMC
⚔️Unlikely Alliances
⚔️Gods and God-K!llers
⚔️Cutthroat Rivals
⚔️Horse Girl Energy
⚔️Epic Quest

This was a strong start to the Divine Thrall series, it had that epic fantasy element that I was looking for and was hooked from the first page. I loved the cover and description and was so glad I was able to read this and get into this world. The characters had that feel that I wanted and was engaged with what was happening with them. Lyndsay Ely has a strong writing style and had that element that I wanted. I really enjoyed how good the concept was and how it was used in the storyline. I hope there is more in this series and from Lyndsay Ely.

This book is incredible!
It’s a quest but with so many secrets and hidden motives. Lys is an incredibly written antihero and Nolan is her perfect foil. I love that we learn about the world, its history, its inhabitants as we are reading. Normally, I actually prefer “info-dumping” in the beginning of a fantasy novel, but Ely wove the elements of this pious world seamlessly throughout.
The comp titles GIDEON THE NINTH and GODKILLER are very accurate, however I felt THE LOST RELIQUARY exhibited its own uniqueness and proved it’s potential on page.
The action scenes—just wow! Adding scythes to my preferred weapons choice immediately. The ending is absolutely BONKERS, as in I couldn’t stop being taken by surprise. A ping pong page game of shock and awe if you will . There are genuinely SO many twists and turns that I couldn’t have guessed the path Lys and the plot took if I had wanted to.

4.5 well-earned stars!
Highly recommend to lovers of action-packed fantasy stories with heavy religious themes and political machinations.

This book devoured 𝒎𝒆, not the other way around.

From the moment I stepped into the world of 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕃𝕠𝕤𝕥 ℝ𝕖𝕝𝕚𝕢𝕦𝕒𝕣𝕪 by Lyndsay Ely, I was completely immersed. The religions, the cultures, the people… it’s all so intricately built that it 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭. Lyndsay Ely didn’t just write a story, she created a world I never wanted to leave.

Lys? I adored her. Her strength of will, the way she compartmentalized and carried so much; she’s inspiring. And don’t even get me started on Nolan… I didn’t know whether I could trust him, and yet, somehow I couldn’t not love him. The twists he brought into the story? Mind. Blown. There’s one particular part where I sat open mouthed staring at my book. (When you know, you’ll know.) That ending? I’m still reeling. I 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 the next book like yesterday.

If you like your world-building immersive, your characters morally complex, and your plot twists savage... this one’s for you.

Add it to your TBR NOW. I’ll accept your thanks later

I enjoyed this book. I think the story is very interesting and has a lot of really great world building.

The characters are very developed and are very strong. I think Lys and her struggle to love but hate the goddess Tempestra-Innara is really intersting and layered. I think it's a character journey that many readers can relate to in their own lives. I was at first entrigued by Nolan, the ever fanatical MMC, but I found him less appealing as the story went on. He is the tower that stands resolute and never changes. Lys is the ever-changing character that lives and breathes and feels.

I will say there were moments I was bogged down by the overall pacing. Some moments at different times were tough to get through, but overall the writing is well done and the story is one that begs for book 2.

I'm excited for the next chapter in this series!

Thank you to SAGA Press for the eARC of this book!

This book surprised and delighted me. I am a huge fan of the Locked Tomb series, and while this book is very very different from that series, Lys is just as snarky and sarcastic as my beloved Gideon and I really enjoyed having that. I feel like we don't always get a POV character who is so jaded and sardonic and it's a nice l0ok. Besides that, the world building was solid, the plot was great, and I really enjoyed how the world and characters slowly opened up to us. Besides that, it is definitely going to have a sequel, WHICH I WILL BE READING.

This fantasy book takes place in a world where almost all gods and goddesses are a thing of a past. Wars between them have left only one standing, Tempestra and her avatar, the person she inhabits Innara. Forcing devotion across the land, Tempestra-Innara gives her gifts to small children with drops of her blood. These children are raised by her acolytes to become priests, hunters and warriors.

After a near death experience Tempestra-Innara sends two of her best warrior trainees, Lys and Nolan, on a quest to find the only object that might let her enemies finally destroy her, The Lost Reliquary.

Thank you to NetGalley and Saga Press for the opportunity to read and review this book which I am giving 3.5⭐️.

I did really enjoy this book and liked the two main characters, Lys and Nolan. I liked the begrudging friendship and respect that developed between them as the book went on and appreciated that this didn’t turn into a typical romantasy. There were some surprises thrown in at the end that I didn’t see coming and I always enjoy the unexpected. I liked how this book ended and will definitely read the next one in the series.

The biggest issue I have with this book is that it felt too long. There are only so many double crosses of a double cross and betrayals of someone who had already been betrayed before it’s time to just get moving. There was a good 10-15% portion of this book where I was ready to DNF it completely. I’m glad that I didn’t, but I think this could have been thinned down a bit.

I look forward to posting about this book on my social media (TikTik and YouTube) closer to its release date.

The Lost Reliquary is an atmospheric adventure full of intrigue, hidden truths, and a touch of magic. Ely’s writing blends mystery and tension with rich world-building that pulls you in from the start. The pacing keeps a steady rhythm, never feeling rushed or dull, allowing the characters and plot to unfold naturally. There is a haunting quality to the setting that lingers long after you have turned the last page. If you enjoy stories that combine dark secrets with a sense of discovery, this one is worth picking up.

THE LOST RELIQUARY, by Lyndsay Ely, takes you to the Devoted Lands, a theocratic society ruled by one, Tempestra-Inara, the Eternal Flame Goddess. Lys has been living her life by going through the motions as a Chosen. A warrior, devout in her actions, but disdainful in her daydreams. Killing her goddess brings her the will to get through each day. There is an execution attempt on Tempestra-Innara's life that reveals it can be possible to kill a god, and her daydreams turn into decidal hope for freedom.

Tasked with tracking down heretics, Lys is partnered with Nolan, a devout rival, and is asked to work together, a highly unusual order, as her blood brothers are usually pitted against one another. She is now forced to pretend loyalty and hide her true goals from her new friend in her quest for freedom.

Verdict:

Loved it. This witty, flippant, cheeky, amusing, and action-packed tale has secrets, twists, and twits. An illustration of one’s struggle with faith, what is true when forced? A theocratic world with enough fear and suspense. Both Nolan and Lys are relatable characters, one being devout and the other scornful. (9/10)