An enchanting enemies-to-lovers fantasy about an exiled saint and the devout iconographer sent to paint him, for fans of Divine Rivals and A Study in Drowning.
The Abbey has controlled the minds of its patrons for a millennium through memory magic, stolen from exiled saints. At fifteen, Jude was exiled from the Abbey to the bleak moors in the countryside, to maintain their control over his bourgeoning magic. Almost a decade later, he wants to live a normal life free from the Abbey’s oppressive gaze. When they send Maeve, a stubbornly devout iconographer, to paint an updated icon of him, Jude makes it his mission to get rid of her as soon as possible. That is until he discovers she holds the same tainted magic of the saints as he does, and that the icons she paints may be the key to destroying the Abbey's power.
As Jude and Maeve draw closer, the two of them face a choice—they can take on the full power of the Abbey and risk their lives for freedom or escape back to exile and make the most of their fading memories. But this institution has eyes everywhere, and the only thing the Abbey loves more than a saint is a martyr.
Not the One for Me
"What did I just read? I can't even tell you. I feel like I spent the majority of this book going through the act of 'reading words' and hoping this experience would be over soon. I honestly should have DNF-ed this book early on because I came away from this book with. . . nothing. I remember barely anything from the story and only have the memory of it being an absolute chore forcing myself through this novel. Unfortunately, I realized quite quickly that I was going to struggle through this book and couldn't help but be crestfallen by that. Regardless of how the story would develop, it was evident the writing style and I would not commingle well. The writing was over exaggerated, excessive, and read like the definition of 'trying too hard'."
