Saint's Blood

At this point in Tristia everyone has it badly. We managed to reach the point that someone started murdering saints and of course Falcio, Kest and Brasti need to be the ones saving the world yet again. Seems like they are the local experts. Sure, Aline is still not proper queen, but they keep trying to make it happen. As soon as they can avoid the most recent “OMG, we are all going to die, someone do something, please” type of an issue. So... they have to figure out who is killing saints, why and how. A lot of questions.

Aaaaand this book is awesome yet again. We managed to reach the point where Sebastien De Castell could write phone books and yogurt labels and I would probably read them as well.
His Goodreads bio is the most hilarious thing ever, but I still don't know how much of his brilliance is the result of being cultivated with all kinds of fancy Yale courses about artsy writing or he just emerged from his mother's womb as a brilliant guy.
I will pretend it is nature's miracle and you can't stop me. Part of it is his humour. This dude makes me giggle and that is exactly what I like, the kind of jokes buddies on an adventure could realistically crack when they have seen it all.

Another thing you can feel is him having fun with this. Not trying to squeeze his brain dry to be some sort of a snobbish piece of pretentious stuff. Nah. He is having fun while you are having fun. I think a lot of people would profit from learning to appreciate that kind of a stuff. Books with actual heart in them.

Previously I complained about Ethalia and Falcio being magically in love and it just feeling a bit unbelievable. It... actually got acknowledged. The man is hilarious, talented and self-aware. YISS. This happens at the very end, though, so not much development on that front yet, but hey, next year the last book in the series is coming (I'm emotionally not prepared for that, we should all hold each other) and I have really high hopes for it.

I think I also complained about wanting to see more Greatcoats. Or I just thought that, dunno. Now here. Here we have some and I am incredibly happy about it. Some old, some new, all delightful in their quirky, misfit ways. Again, these are people I could totally imagine functioning as their little group of oddball peacekeepers and magistrates, doing their thing. At some point they take their oaths, which are of course never the same, all encompassing the story and motivations of the specific Greatcoat. My ooooonly little complaint is not all of them being written down. Why did we leave out Allister??

In this book there was considerably less Aline and Valiana and much more Ethalia, which was interesting and honestly, I wasn't too annoyed by her. I don't like love stories, I don't like fantasy books with the love interests being around too much and when a lot of the story actively involves both members of the couple. I just don't.
This time it wasn't too much, though, so again, a win. Falcio didn't act like a completely different, moronic lovey-dovey teenager because Ethalia was around. Sure, he cared about her, but it wasn't sickly or overwhelming.

So basically this was awesome. I fangirled about it, I loved it so much. Embarrassing, probably, but I can't help it when Sebastien De Castell writes what I want to read. I'm sure there are people who dislike this series and this specific book, but to me it feels like something specifically made to please me, even if it sound egoistic.

I'm reading the last book when it comes and anything else yet to come by the author. Aaaand now I am going to mark him as one of my favourites, because this series is my favourite new discovery so far this year. After three whole books I am confident when I say that.

Good night and don't bother praying to the saints. The saint is dead. O.o