I feel like I need to change my rating for wicked saints because I did not love it at all towards the middle of the story nor the end. I was completely over it, but I gave it a mild 3.5 last year because I am in love with the gothic world building but everything else is pretty much forgettable.

Ruthless gods was better, which would make it a solid 3.5. I’m not sure if it was because I went into ruthless gods without high expectations like I did with Wicked Saints. Even so, I feel like the characters were better-rounded in book 2.

I didn’t have any feelings for Malachiaz nor Nadya after wicked saints, but ruthless gods definitely made me appreciate both their characters a lot more and their relationship.

The world-building was as glorious as ever, and I felt like there was much better solidarity to the plot this book then there was in wicked saints.

Was the beginning kind of slow? Yes.

Did it get better? Yes.

There were a lot of great scenes within this book, but sometimes these scenes happen but you don’t have a lot of previous evidence or build-up that leads to these glorious scenes so that throws you off.

Now for the star of this series and both books for me — Serefin, he just gets better in each book and I’m very excited to see where book three picks up for him and his kingdom. I do wish we had more of a partnership between him and Nadya, I really want that in book three.

That being said, Ruthless gods wasn’t a brain bursting read for me but I did enjoy it for the reasons I listed above. And if you’re a fan of very atmospheric, aesthetic reads then I highly recommend this series