Aya is Celaena Sardothien before she became a good character. Both are bitter, bratty, gloomy and headstrong. Both have woe-is-me attitudes that chafe and, in Aya’s case, it never truly feels justified in the text. Her mom was killed and she set off the sequence of events that allowed that to take place. That is a kind of trauma. However, the amount of self-flagellation that she engages in is exhausting considering there has been nothing else to date indicating her life has been difficult. She easily rose through the ranks and became the spymaster to the queen at 21 (that’s a whole other level of literary suspension of disbelief that is entirely inaccessible to myself). At least Celaena had more she was grappling with. Will, the Queen's Second/interrogator of the kingdom of Tala who has the natural affinity of Sensainos/sensing Every interaction between Aya and Will made me squeal and I am obsessed with them' 5***** READER REVIEW

Another strange world building choice exists within her naming decisions. She manages to give her two male love interests the incredibly pedestrian names of Will and Adrian, and yet we’re to believe that these men live in a world where Tovas and Ayas roam the streets? It doesn’t work. Inspired by a dream about a woman calling down lightning to save a friend, The Curse of Saints is Kate's debut fantasy novel and the first in the trilogy. The ending felt so hopeful. Aya and Will may not be heading off to a happy ending, but they’re together, they’re being honest with each other, and they’re ready to take it all on. But that epilogue. It hit me right in the gut and left me spiralling. This was one of my highly anticipated reads and I wanted so much to love it with the fire of a thousand burning suns. But I just ended up having mediocre feelings at best. And really, I've forgotten most of what I read after putting finishing this on hold for a few days. 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.

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Example: Aya is bonded to a wolf (and isn't the only person in her group to be bonded to an animal) and yet this is barely explored in the book. Another example is the Queen, who both Will and Aya serve, is clearly a fascinating and complicated part of this dynamic, but she gets very little face time in the book. Add this to the fact that none of the cities or places in the world really acquired enough depth to feel REAL.

The book definitely hit its stride in the middle. By this point, I was also slightly more invested with the story. Unfortunately, I didn't become as attached with the characters as I would have liked. And I wasn't as on board with the romance for some reason. (Any other time I would have fallen head over heels for the secret pining.) It was as if his darkness had called to hers, and she hadn’t been able to resist responding. And for that, she hated him.” 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.'”I loved the character development, the mystery of who’s on whose side, the magic, the romance, all of it 🤌 I’m going to need to own a copy of this one! I can’t wait for the next book to see what happens next! Thank you to Sourcebooks Casablanca for providing an arc via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. In The Curse of Saints, the first in a trilogy from debut author Kate Dramis, we are introduced to a kingdom rife with the power of Visya’s; individuals who are blessed with affinities of raw, god-like magic. Visya powers fall under any three categories: Physical Affinities, Elemental Affinities, and Mind, Emotion & Sensation Affinities. Our protagonist, Aya, falls under the last, possessing the power of persuasion. These powers, however, have been bound to never grow strong enough to challenge the Nine Divine, the realm’s gods. In a nearby kingdom, there are rumours of a dark magic arising, threatening to reach Aya’s home. It is this dark magic that sets the plot of the book into motion, where Aya, the Queen’s Spymaster, is forced to investigate this threat alongside her rival Will, the Queen’s Enforcer and Second. It is on this journey that Aya discovers that her affinity is one that spills over the bounds that restrict the Visya, placing her at risk of becoming a weapon in a war she does not know how to win, or might not necessarily want to.