The Curse of Saints: The Spellbinding No 2 Sunday Times Bestseller

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I am so obsessed!!! I am really beyond obsessed. The enemies-to-lovers relationship between Will and Aya was so serious. I really did not know what to think at first because they obviously have a connection, but they each had huge issues with the other. Forced by circumstance to work together, Aya and Will struggle to come to an uneasy truce. But when tragedy strikes, Aya instinctively reacts, unleashing a power that hasn't been seen in over 500 years. Shaken, she's confronted with an impossible truth: one that threatens the precious grip she keeps on her control. One that forces her to work with Will to discover who―or what―she really is. And one that could turn her into a weapon in a war she doesn't know how to win. It's been a while since I haven't read a fantasy that's not rushed when it comes to the ship. This one was one hell of a painful slow burn filled with tension, threats (a lot), knife to the throat, mfc being pushed against a wall by the mm and fight scenes ending up with one of the characters on the ground and the other on top. It's the kind of slow burn that makes you scream for the two characters to kiss because they're so close to do it. It makes you mad and you cannot stop reading the book. This made me feel the same way as when I was reading ACOTAR (it's not similar to acotar it's just the feeling of reading it). This was a masterpiece and I cannot wait to read the second book. GIVE IT TO ME NOW !!!!!

Aya, the spymaster/Queen's Eye of the kingdom of Tala who has the natural affinity of Persi/persuasion, one of the three strongest Visyas in Tala Aidon was a new character that arrived in Part II, and while I liked the change of scenery he brought, I didn’t think he was ever a viable love interest. I did like the scheming that took place in his kingdom though. I did, however, greatly enjoy the political tension that permeates once we reach part two of the novel: Enemies and Allies. In this section, we are introduced to the third point-of-view, Prince Aidon, the heir to the neighbouring kingdom of Trahir. The thread that weaves Aya, Will and Aidon together slowly unravels as the political intrigue arises, whereby each character must question how far they are willing to let their budding friendships last in the greater political game that they have become pawns in.there was nothing but uncompromising will in his face. 'then i’ll go over it with you. to the seven hells themselves, if we must. no matter how far the fall.'”

The POV writing was also poorly done. With regard to Adrian, his POV is clumsily introduced for the first time after one third of the book has already taken place. When I first realized we were getting a third perspective, I paused my audiobook and asked myself, why?? Why do we care about this character we don’t know, whom we have no connection to, to justify him having his own perspective? By the time I reached the end, I was even more baffled. The twist ending featuring Adrian would have been all the more impactful if we hadn’t already seen his hand by peering through his eyes for half the book. It didn’t make sense and would have been an easy element of the story to part with.

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This was a let down. Between the Franken-plotting of popular tropes and plot points of much-beloved series, I just couldn’t get behind any of this. For future books in this series, this publisher really needs to push their editors to take a closer look and really dig in with this author. This needed so much more work and I’m disappointed that I’m seeing what appears to be a first or second draft getting published in full form. Dramis has promise as a romantasy author, but more fleshing out needs to be done before she can truly grow. The author relied on info dumps throughout the read, though they were especially concentrated at the beginning. Not only did this take away from the plot and characters, but it was also so much information at once that it wasn’t easy to absorb or understand its relevance. And despite the info-dumping, the setting and world of this book were not described or incorporated well at all. This story could have been put into any generic fantasy world and it would have blended in. However, the author described everyone’s eye and hair color anytime they came into a scene. There were also things that were mentioned that are quite modern, despite this supposedly being a high fantasy setting with gods and magic. I also disliked how many times the characters remembered something someone had previously said verbatim– this sounds like a small quibble, but the number of times lines (often the exact same ones) were repeated in this book became cumbersome. I’m looking forward to the rest of this trilogy and hope it maintains the high standards set by The Curse of Saints. The premise of this one was interesting, and I was hoping to see the author take it somewhere compelling. Unfortunately, everything about this read felt generic and bland. And this is classified as “Adult Fantasy,” but was more YA than many of the YA fantasies I’ve read.

The beginning was heavy with world building. Which, is usually expected but I felt like everything was thrown in and we didn't get much context or depth for a lot of it. I wanted more meat to really feel grounded in the world. (Bonded, talking (?) wolves, magic system, political intrigue). Why didn't the wolf go with Aya? Aren't they bonded? I think it would have been cool to have the wolves play a bigger role in the story. There was so much potential there for the wolves to be a more integral part of the story. Fortunately, the romance did not overpower the plot, which had some good world-building and an intriguing magic system.Rumours of dark magic arise in a nearby Kingdom and Aya, the Queen's Spymaster, is sent alongside her rival, Will the Queen's Enforcer, to investigate. Aya's power starts to act beyond her gods-given affinity and she struggles to control it out of fear that she may be turned into a weapon in an oncoming war. Thanks to NetGalley & Sourcebooks Casablanca for an eARC of this book. The following review is my honest reflection on the text provided. I knew next to nothing going into this book, except maybe some vague plot points (enemies to lovers, dark magic etc) I wouldn't categorise this as enemies to lovers, Aya and Will are on the same side, if anything I'd say maybe rivals to lovers, however their banter is top tier and is what kept me reading.