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The Starving Saints
Caitlin Starling
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USA Today Bestseller!
“As brilliant as it is bizarre. From the very first page you know you are in the hands of an author at the height of their abilities. . . . This is the unhinged cannibal book of my dreams—and my nightmares.” —Ava Reid, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Study in Drowning
From the nationally bestselling author of The Luminous Dead and The Death of Jane Lawrence, a transfixing fever dream of medieval horror following three women in a besieged castle that descends ravenously into madness under the spell of mysterious, godlike visitors.
Aymar Castle has been under siege for six months. Food is running low and there has been no sign of rescue. But just as the survivors consider deliberately thinning their number, the castle stores are replenished. The sick are healed. And the divine figures of the Constant Lady and her Saints have arrived, despite the barricaded gates, offering succor in return for adoration.
Soon, the entire castle is under the sway of their saviors, partaking in intoxicating feasts of terrible origin. The war hero Ser Voyne gives her allegiance to the Constant Lady. Phosyne, a disorganized, paranoid nun-turned-sorceress, races to unravel the mystery of these new visitors and exonerate her experiments as their source. And in the bowels of the castle, a serving girl, Treila, is torn between her thirst for a secret vengeance against Voyne and the desperate need to escape from the horrors that are unfolding within Aymar’s walls.
As the castle descends into bacchanalian madness—forgetting the massed army beyond its walls in favor of hedonistic ecstasy—these three women are the only ones to still see their situation for what it is. But they are not immune from the temptations of the castle’s new masters… or each other; and their shifting alliances and entangled pasts bring violence to the surface. To save the castle, and themselves, will take a reimagining of who they are, and a reorganization of the very world itself.
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Posts about this title from Sapph-Lit
Sapph-Lit SEPTEMBER 2026 fiction book poll!
What should we read as we transition into fall? Another romance? Some lit fic? Perhaps something else entirely? Share your thoughts in the comments!
9 books
3
Posts about this book from across Bindery
Sapph-Lit SEPTEMBER 2026 fiction book poll!
What should we read as we transition into fall? Another romance? Some lit fic? Perhaps something else entirely? Share your thoughts in the comments!
9 books
3
Bee's Books\ \ Bailee Russo\ \ • Jun 26
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Sarah Does Bookish Stuff\ \ Sarah\ \ • Jun 1
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[Dang, May was a decent month for reading. I ended up at 16 total books and I want to write a little bit about them! 16 is a lot so I won't go into too much detail. In the future, I'll be sharing longer-form reviews that give a lot more of my takeaways so be on the lookout for those!\ \ Toothsucker by Kaden Love\ \ I was fortunate to listen to the audiobook of this and I enjoyed it a lot. The narrator had the perfect cadence for the book. It surprised me! It wasn't what I expected and significantly more cyberpunk than I realized. The world is fun, weird, gross, and weaves in a lot of political themes. Kaden is clearly just having a blast writing this and I feel like authors who have fun always make something incredible.\ \ Headlights by C.J. Leede\ \ I could write a dissertation on the beauty of this book. Truly. I read the ARC, cried my eyes out, and preordered a signed copy. This book lives in me. It did something to my brain. Leede has a magnetic writing style I couldn't stop devouring. How she threaded in folk horror to her work was creative and considerate. Her characters and how they're connected, their pasts, and the way they find meaning in each other, however, was so beautiful. Also, I am having a hard time explaining why a woman eating a man's finger during sex is heart-achingly romantic.\ \ The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang\ \ I don't understand why people didn't adore this book. I mean, I do, but I don't. Kuang is incredibly good at making it less clear what it means to be a hero. This book showed the horror of genocide and the aftermath of Rin's destructive meltdown at the end of The Poppy War, plus the lingering ghost of Altan coloring her view of the world. Kuang is fantastic at showing Rin's imperfections and giving us depth and color to Nezah that made me fall in love with him - yes, even in the ending. Every character is their own ecosystem of motivation and an exploration of nature versus nurture. I LOVE her character work. \ \ The Burning God by R.F. Kuang\ \ This was my favorite in the series, just fantastic. It's bleak, but its raw and visceral and real. Rin isn't a moral paragon and I think people disliked that, but I absolutely loved it. Rin begins to realize she has no foresight and no plan, she struggles in the way a young person with too much power and no guidance would struggle. She has nobody left to turn to and has to figure it out, which makes her struggle and suffer in personal ways. It turns the war from abstract to overt and she has to contend with the different facets of having power. The power of a god, an army, a country... and she does not handle it well. I thought the ending was deft, Kuang tells you how it has to end the entire time and people just weren't paying attention. \ \ A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab\ \ Holland mt love. My absolute perfect book husband. This book was an extraordinary sequel and gave us such a fun experience. Schwab is a master of character work, it's impossible not to fall in love with all of them. I really enjoyed how she showed Holland's history and why he is the way he is. I think he is one of the most complex, beautiful characters I've read in a long time. I could write a treatise in his defense. He didn't have what Kell had and if he did, he would have been extremely similar. Holland knew only suffering in his world and still he only ever sought to change it for the better. \ \ A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab\ \ A phenomenal final entry into the first era. Just amazing. Deep characters, meaningful arcs, all knots tied with enough left to come back. I love how fantastical and whimsical this world is while feeling threatening and deep. I stand by all my previously sung praises for Holland, they could never make me hate him. It could only ever end one way, even if it broke my heart. Still, no matter what, I will always be delusionally hopeful Era 2 might change something about it.\ \ Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne\ \ This was a significant bar-raise from Malice and Valor. I know The Faithful and the Fallen is a crowd favorite, but I'm only finding it alright. Nothing about it sticks to me. I liked Shadow of the Gods, but I don't get the cinematic click everyone else seems to. It's fun, predictable, with distinct characters, but nothing about it really blew me away. I like Orka, but she isn't a favorite in my house. I'm not sure if Gwynne's writing style is just not for me? \ \ Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao\ \ I wanted to love this. I did. I loved Iron Widow so much, it was a neck-breaking fever dream that played out like a dramatic anime in my mind. Zhao just bogged this down in so much theory and interjected way too much modernism that it drowned the story for me. Eventually, hearing the fifth iterative explanation of communism versus socialism just turns to white noise in my head. Plus, the introduction of the Emperor and the disappearance of Yizhi and Shimin for most of the story made my interest in the three of them fade. \ \ The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling\ \ Okay this was exactly the kind of weird medieval cannibal lesbian nun book I was hoping for. Starling makes you work for it. People described it as "slow", but I disagree completely. Starling makes every sentence matter, she forces you to focus and pay attention to what she is saying. Her commentary on weak leadership, the fallibility of man, isolation, duty, honor, disconnection, community... all of it was perfectly captured in this claustrophobic horror novel. Plus, I would let Ser Voyne do unspeakable things to me, but she would never. Too much honor. \ \ The Starless Crown by James Rollins\ \ This book is AMAZING. Sci-fantasy peak. I can't believe more people aren't reading and loving it. This trilogy is incredibly inventive and creative, the world is realistic and strange. Rollins built characters who are insightful and a villain that truly shocked me to my core. I didn't expect a surprise villain because who does that?! Rollins is known for his sci-fi thrillers, so I think people expect this to be the same, but I assure you it's anything but. I can't wait to continue this series!\ \ The Nightshade God by Hannah Whitten\ \ How I wanted to love this, but I only felt okay about it. I loved The Foxglove King and enjoyed The Hemlock Queen, but this one felt a bit messy and crowded. The added perspective for Alie was great, I wish it had been included starting in Book 2. I didn't love the ending, but I loved that we got to see so much change and see how Lore's enduring love for her men carried her through the worst losses of her life. I wish we had more explanation about why Lore's arc ended the way it did, the Fount's motivations felt dubious to me. However, I still read it in two days and Whitten has a beautifully addictive style of writing no matter what. \ \ The Daughters' War by Christopher Buehlman\ \ Galva dom Braga is my book wife and I will follow her to the ends of the earth. Buehlman wrote something so special that this book is basically family now. The tone is completely different from The Blacktongue Thief, first in the series, but it should be and it works wonders for this story. His world is so gritty and intense, it's creative and sharp and still funny in a different way. Galva's story is a harrowing, tragic explanation about who she is and how she came to be the Ispanthian warrior we know and love. I adored this book. This book was magical. It feels like listening to a story at a campfire and I urge people to try this series. \ \ The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo\ \ What a unique read this was! I love foxes and all the mythology around them, but Choo did something fantastical with it. This story was not just about Snow overcoming her grief and her thirst for revenge, it was about the subtle differences in fox mythology around East Asia and how the British occupation was slowly erasing the cultural identity of so many countries. Bao's tale wasn't just solving the crime of a peculiar death, it was teaching readers about cultural practices and regional differences and how women were oppressed in more ways than just foot binding in China. \ \ The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes\ \ This book was a miraculous work of weird fiction. I am so emotional about it it's bizarre. What masterful storytelling and unbelievable prose! Ennes is a stunning writer that manages to make stab wounds into poetry. This world wove art and politics together until they were not separate from one another. They showed you how tyrants are born in a slow drip, not a flood. So much more went into this. The ease around trans identity, control versus love, how sociopolitical rot destroys a society, our unresolved mistakes always come back to us, and so much more. I can't even speak about the characters because to do so is to reveal the story, which I would never want to do. I didn't expect a story about extermination to move me like this. \ \ House of Chains by Steven Erikson\ \ Erikson really flexed on his readers with this one. He proved he can hold a single character POV in his hands and simply chooses not to because that's not what the story demands. This book was a real open-faucet torrent of his background in archaeology and anthropology. He has so many poignant things to say about cultures formed on the bones of each other, changing worlds and ever-changing societies, etc. Plus he managed to pull off one of the greatest redemption arcs I've ever read. Lookin' at you, Karsa. \ \ A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett\ \ Convinced RJB isn't capable of writing anything short of fantastic. This mystery was wild and the world is so bizarre and fun, I never want to leave it. I love how Bennett's goal isn't to solve this world's ills or take out its Empire or change the leviathans, it's just to show you a glimpse of the bigger way the machine of it functions. We learn a bit more about Ana and who she is every book through these mysteries that feel like a fever dream. Dinios Kol remains my disaster bisexual son who misses the love of his life and just won't admit it to himself. The problem is that if he won't, Ana will. \ \ This was an amazing month for reading! I got through a lot of books and only didn't squeeze ONE from my original TBR into the mix. I am so fortunate to have walked away loving so many of them this month, too. I actually changed The Works of Vermin from a 4.5 to a 5 because it sat with me that much. I had TWO 5-star reads this month:\ \
- Headlights by C.J. Leede\ \
- The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes\ \ \ June will be a deviation from my regularly scheduled reading programming as I'm doing my very first read through and analysis of Throne of Glass! I'm calling it June of Glass! Which is ridiculous! \ \ I'm looking forward to analyzing what about this series speaks to people and trying to piece together how Sarah J. Maas was able to captivate a generation of woman readers from multiple ages and bring them into reading again. Be on the lookout for my analysis of the first book - Throne of Glass.](https://sarahdoesbookishstuff.binderybooks.com/item/KqlWx7tQrzNV0FlNt9ut/)
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Fat Forward Books\ \ Samantha Puc\ \ • May 7
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What's in a year? Lessons learned and plans for the future on Fat Forward Books' first anniversary.
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Sunny's Book Truck\ \ CJ\ \ • Aug 15 2025
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[Poll:\ \ Are any of these on your TBR?\ \ Hi nerds,\ \ Last night we held our second installment of the Sunny's Salon—a monthly addition to our event programming that is like a book club with no assigned reading. We kicked off the night by doing a 15 minute reading sprint with some lofi music playing in the background and then went into a larger discussion centered around or Last, Now, and Next. It was so fun hearing about what people were reading or had on their radar (weirdly three people wanted to read Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh next) and seeing where reading taste overlapped and differed. Below you will find 50 (!) book recommendations gathered from the Yuma community.\ \ \ \
- Endling: Set in Ukraine, an eccentric scientist breeding rare snails crosses paths with sisters posing as members of the marriage industry to find their activist mother. As Russia invades, they embark on a wild journey with kidnapped bachelors and a last-of-its-kind snail. This darkly comic novel explores survival, love, and hope in times of encroaching darkness.\ \
- Hot Girls with Balls: In this outrageous and deeply serious satire, two star indoor volleyball players juggle unspoken jealousies in their off-court romance ahead of their rival teams’ first rematch in a year.\ \
- Mayra: An eerie, hypnotic debut about friendship, desire, and memory set against the sultry backdrop of Florida’s swamplands.\ \
- Empire of Pain: A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin.\ \
- Say Hello to my Little Friend: Scarface meets Moby Dick in Say Hello to My Little Friend following a young man’s attempt to capitalize on his mother’s murky legacy—a story steeped in Miami’s marvelous and sinister magic.\ \
- I'll Make a Spectacle of You: This heart-pounding horror debut from Beatrice Winifred Iker takes listeners to Bricksbury University, the oldest and most storied HBCUs in the nation. But as one student is about to find out, a long history comes with a legacy of secrets.\ \ \ \ \
- Before Elvis: In this thought-provoking book, the Black musicians who influenced Elvis Presley's music finally receive recognition and praise.\ \
- Nineteen Minutes: Jodi Picoult pens her most riveting book yet, with a startling and poignant story about the devastating aftermath of a small-town tragedy.\ \
- Pageboy: With this evocative and lyrical debut, Oscar-nominated star Elliot Page captures the universal human experience of searching for ourselves and our place in this complicated world.\ \
- Follow My Voice: This spellbinding #BookTok sensation from internationally bestselling author Ariana Godoy follows a nineteen-year-old battling agoraphobia as she forms an unexpected connection with the host of her favorite college radio show.\ \
- Wild Love: She's been driving him wild for years. The good kind of wild. The bad kind of wild. But mostly, the kind of wild that comes with wanting your best friend's little sister and knowing you can't have her.\ \
- The Possession of Alba Díaz: When a demonic presence awakens deep in a Mexican silver mine, the young woman it seizes must turn to the one man she shouldn’t trust…from bestselling author Isabel Cañas.\ \ \ \ \
- The Colossus of New York: Here is a literary love song that will entrance anyone who has lived in—or spent time—in the greatest of American cities.\ \
- Is Mother Dead: A cat and mouse game of surveillance and psychological torment develops between a middleaged artist and her aging mother.\ \
- The Metamorphosis: This is not just a novel about physical transformation but also a deep reflection on alienation and loneliness.\ \
- Time and Time Again: In this debut YA speculative romance perfect for fans of Rachael Lippincott, two queer, disabled, Jewish teens find themselves stuck in a time loop--and falling love.\ \
- The Fellowship of the Ring: One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.\ \
- The Library at Hellebore: A deeply dark academia novel from USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw, perfect for fans of A Deadly Education and An Education in Malice who are hungry for something more diabolical.\ \ \ \ \
- A Resistance of Witches: As World War II rages around her, a witch abandoned by her coven must journey to find a book of unspeakable power before it lands in Nazi hands.\ \
- Ruthless Vows: The epic conclusion to the intensely romantic and beautifully written story that started in Divine Rivals.\ \
- Tender is the Flesh: Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans - though no one calls them that anymore.\ \
- Our Share of Night: A woman’s mysterious death puts her husband and son on a collision course with her demonic family.\ \
- Heart of Darkness: The story is narrated by Charles Marlow, recalling his obsessive quest to locate the ivory trader Kurtz, who has become ensconced deep in the jungle managing a remote outpost. As he ventures further and further down the Congo, Marlow finds himself and his surroundings become increasingly untethered.\ \
- Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed: A "harrowing, incendiary" exposé of the real Kennedy Curse—the family’s generations-long legacy of misogyny, murder, and mayhem.\ \ \ \ \
- The Summer I Turned Pretty: As the summer seasons pass, Belly has to choose between two brothers who love her…and she’ll have to break one of their hearts.\ \
- Releasing 10: A devastatingly raw, achingly beautiful love story that will rip your heart out and patch it back together.\ \
- Tropic of Orange: Irreverently juggling magical realism, film noir, hip hop, and chicanismo, Tropic of Orange takes place in a Los Angeles where the homeless, gangsters, infant organ entrepreneurs, and Hollywood collide on a stretch of the Harbor Freeway.\ \
- Atmosphere: An epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.\ \
- Starving Saints: A transfixing fever dream of medieval horror following three women in a besieged castle that descends ravenously into madness under the spell of mysterious, godlike visitors.\ \
- Black Salt Queen: Filled with passion, romance, betrayal, and divine magic, Black Salt Queen journeys to a gorgeous precolonial island nation where women—and secrets—reign.\ \ \ \ \
- American Scare: A vital exposé for both our history and our present day, American Scare tells the riveting story of how the Florida government destroyed the lives of Black and queer citizens in the twentieth century.\ \
- Can't Get Enough: Hendrix Barry lives a fabulous life. She has phenomenal friends, a loving family, and a thriving business that places her in the entertainment industry's rarefied air. Your vision board? She’s probably living it.\ \
- Ship Fever: The elegant short fictions gathered hereabout the love of science and the science of love are often set against the backdrop of the nineteenth century.\ \
- Lapvona: In a village buffeted by natural disasters, a motherless shepherd boy finds himself part of a power struggle that puts the community’s faith to a savage test.\ \
- Smothermoss: A haunting, imaginative, and twisting tale of two sisters and the menacing, unexplained forces that threaten them and their rural mountain community.\ \
- Everything is Tuberculosis: A deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest infectious disease.\ \ \ \ \
- City of Quartz: In City of Quartz, Davis reconstructs L.A.’s shadow history and dissects its ethereal economy.\ \
- The Coin: A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman's unraveling as she teaches at a New York City middle school, gets caught up in a scheme reselling Birkin bags, and strives to gain control over her body and mind.\ \
- How to Read a Book: A heartfelt, uplifting novel about a chance encounter at a bookstore, exploring redemption, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing power of sharing stories.\ \
- Razorblade Tears: A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance.\ \
- All the Dangerous Things: A totally gripping thriller about a desperate mother with a troubled past.\ \
- Lock Every Door: A young woman whose new job apartment sitting in one of New York’s oldest and most glamorous buildings may cost more than it pays.\ \ \ \ \
- Compound Fracture: A queer Appalachian thriller that pulls no punches—following a trans autistic teen who's drawn into the generational struggle between the rural poor and those who exploit them.\ \
- This is Me Trying: Inevitably drawn back together by circumstance and history, Beatriz and Santiago navigate grief, love, mental illness, forgiveness, and what it means to try to build a future after unfathomable loss.\ \
- You Weren't Meant to be Human: Alien meets Midsommar in this chilling debut adult novel from award-winning author Andrew Joseph White about identity, survival, and transformation amidst an alien invasion in rural West Virginia.\ \
- Bright Young Women: Don’t miss this “breakneck thriller” that examines “our culture’s obsession with serial killers and true crime” ( Harper’s Bazaar) as it follows two women on the pursuit of justice against all odds.\ \
- The Changeling: With a new introduction by Karen Russell, the 40th anniversary edition of The Changeling is a visionary fairy tale and a work of mythic genius by one of our best writers.\ \
- Choke: Victor Mancini, a medical-school dropout, is an antihero for our deranged times.](https://sunnysbooktruck.binderybooks.com/item/P7WfIPf3S2q1NS4tNJ2v/)
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