Crow can pass for human. She may come off as eccentric, but she’s good at hiding her wings. As a saint, she’s devoted her endless life to protecting humanity from other immortals: the ones they call monsters. She’s finally ready to take on the worst monster of all, a great evil sealed at the edge of civilization.
Magnolia is the worst monster of all. A villain who amuses herself by preying on valiant heroes. At first glance, she looks powerless. She looks, in fact, like a decapitated head (a very chatty one). But her magic lets her issue absolute commands to humans and immortals alike. She’s been waiting centuries for a challenger powerful enough to break the seal binding her in the wilderness. In other words, she’s been waiting centuries to magically seize control over someone like Crow.
Crow has always been patient and forgiving. Sadistic, remorseless Magnolia awakens new depths of loathing in her—a hatred of frightening intensity. And now, she’s forced to use her full power to grant Magnolia’s one heartfelt wish: to see the rest of the world. To make up for all the years she spent trapped alone with only trees for company.
What follows is an ultra slow-burn romance between true enemies. Between good and evil. Between a winged woman and a talkative severed head (who occasionally sprouts the rest of her body, just to keep things lively). They travel together across a post-apocalyptic landscape marked by strange magic and scattered human settlements. Yet the apocalypse happened a long time ago, and eons will pass before their gradually fading world dies for good.
In the meantime, these immortals are stuck with each other. Even a saint and a monstrous villain might eventually fall in love—but the path there will be dark, crooked, and sometimes surprisingly cozy.
Ten books have made it to the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) Finals, and of course we are reviewing every finalist! We already covered our own pick, Of Mages and Makers by Rel Carroll, which leaves nine still to go.
Today we are reviewing Carrion Saints by Hiyodori, which was Fantasy Book Critic‘s pick for this year’s SPFBO. You can read their review here. And you can see the finalist spreadsheet here.
Carrion Saints is a strange pairing to summarize: grimdark bones, low stakes, and a slow burn romance that several of us didn’t see coming until it was already happening. Here’s what we thought.
Adawia
I came to this book with no expectations and yet Hiyodori has managed to, inexplicably, exceed all them all—in the very best way. Carrion Saints is cool, clever, and mind-bendingly weird.
Hiyodori has a way of getting to the heart of not only emotions, but random thoughts and feelings as well. The depiction of these thoughts and emotions is often raw and incisive, and invites moments of pondering. Her prose contains just enough flowers to keep me gorging on all the details and descriptions—even though I tend to otherwise get a little frustrated when they’re excessive.
I thought I might get the ‘ick’ from the romance, but I trusted Hiyodori’s writing skills, and after reading only two of her books, trusted what I believe is a good and deep understanding of human nature, to pull it off. And pull it off she did. When viewed through the lens of monsters (and saints, I guess) behaving according to their nature, the non-invasive romantic aspect of this story works. I came to see Magnolia as a predator who is not only capable of tearing up her cute, fluffy prey (that we naturally feel sorry for) but who can also feel love and have a sense of nurturing—in the same way a predatory animal shows affection and has a protective instinct for a mate or offspring.
So, even though I think this book kinda, sorta, almost, feels a little long-winded in the last quarter or so, I was too enthralled for that to be anything near a real issue. And, to be honest, by that stage I was feeling pretty eager to see how it all turns out.
EG
When picking up the book, I had no more information than the title and the cover, so I went into this world absolutely blind. And that, I think, let me be swallowed whole by the story.
This book follows Crow, or rather the Saint of the Carrion Crows, who is an immortal that eats her magic from promised companions. Monsters, on the other hand, don’t worry about consent and eat the magic from whoever they can. Crow is on a journey to find the last of the four Great Adversaries to fulfil a promise to her last companion. But when she finds the Woman in the Woods, she is immediately caught in Magnolia’s commanding magic and becomes her unwilling servant. But what’s a saint to do when she is toting around a talking severed head as they journey for the end of the world? Talk back, of course.
This was such a unique story where the magic and world were intricately crafted. The writing was vivid and the characters nuanced and fascinating. Crow and Magnolia were very much not human, but were relatable regardless. There was a fair bit of philosophising about the nature of people and the world and such, but I think it flowed well with the story.
I will say I have no idea how to categorise this book. It’s grimdark, but the stakes are low enough that it doesn’t feel like it fully belongs in the grimdark or epic category. It’s certainly not cozy, even with the relatively low stakes. I think it is a story unto itself and that’s perfectly fine.
My biggest issue with the book is more that the story did seem to drag on a bit, given the low stakes and the nature of the characters. Magnolia was prone to dissecting everything through conversation and after a while I just wanted to get to the point. It’s an extremely well-written book, but for me, the last third of the book dragged on a bit. Still, entertaining and unique.
Eva
For me, this is one of those books that I tried SO hard to like. The writing is beautiful, the characters are interesting, the monsters are monstering, but the combination of slow pacing and repetitive world analysis was a struggle for me.
I ended up DNFing this one at 35%, but ultimately wanted to rate it a personal pass rather than a true hate/DNF because my brain knows it’s something unique and worthy of a score given by those who gave it the opportunity to flesh out.
Julia
Carrion Saints pairs a winged saint with a monster whose true form is a severed head, and that alone made this feel like nothing else I’ve read.
Crow has spent centuries protecting humans from immortals like Magnolia, monsters who prey on people instead of serving them. Magnolia is one of the worst ones still left, sealed away for ages until Crow finally comes to fight her. Except Magnolia has a power Crow didn’t plan for: she can issue commands that immortals and humans alike are compelled to obey. The moment they meet, Crow ends up under Magnolia’s control instead of ending her, and from there a slow, quietly toxic relationship starts to build between them.
That control is where the real damage sits. Magnolia uses it cruelly, and that kind of power imbalance runs through their whole dynamic, especially in the early chapters when Magnolia is actively tormenting Crow.
The book’s real focus is how the two of them change each other over time. Crow starts out sure she doesn’t need anything beyond her mortal companions, people who will love her for a lifetime and then die, by her hands. It takes the whole book for her to admit she’s lonely, and that having another immortal beside her, one who won’t leave, is something she actually needs.
Magnolia softens too. She stops tormenting Crow so viciously, and Crow in turn starts paying attention to her own needs instead of only everyone else’s. Watching them adjust to each other is basically the whole plot, there isn’t much else happening beyond these two traveling together through a dark, bloody, inventive world.
I don’t read for romance, and going in blind for SPFBO, this didn’t read like a slow burn until close to the end. There’s a short sex scene that caught me completely off guard, though readers coming in with romance expectations will probably see it coming long before I did.
What kept me reading regardless was the tone. The writing is sharp and punchy, and it matches this strange, blood-soaked world perfectly. Magnolia especially stood out to me: she’s a genuine monster, not a misunderstood one, and I still found her relatable.
This book does exactly what it sets out to do. It’s just not 100% my type of book.
It is a slow burn between an immortal saint and a monstrous severed head who can bend her mind completely, set in a strange, bloody world, nestled in a slice of life story. Sharply written and confident in what it wants to be, even if the romance itself never fully landed for me.
Karen
I was pretty invested at the start of this one, but as soon as Crow was captured I felt like it started to drag a bit. I was hoping I would get drawn back in, but some of the plot points just felt a bit forced. The slower pace could be nice for some readers, but for me, I slid off the story more than I would like.
I enjoyed this one but I think my biggest problem was that as much as I was interested in the world and the story, I also felt like it was all so slow. But that being said, the world and the characters were interesting to read about.
Kerry
I do have to admit I am not generally a fan of romance, especially the Enemy-to-Lovers trope but I am a big fan of the way the author Hiyodori writes them. I will often read a Hiyodori book that, even though it’s promoted as a romance, I still get a surprise when the romance happens.
Carrion Saints is more a journey of confrontation of truths and facing them as well as a road to discovery rather than the usual bumpy road to romance.
Hiyodori’s worldbuilding is one of her strengths as an author. In Carrion Saints the world is set in a period known as The Beginning of the End of the World. It has come to this because of Vorpal holes created by human Mages, holes that tear an “impermeable border between realms of existence” and destroy all living things in their radius. Huge air borne creatures called aerials appear from these holes along with other beings from distant times. There are also ancient machina robots, automagi, primordial beasts and half-immortals. If you’ve read any of Hiyodori’s other books you may recognise a few of these as well as one of the side characters, but it doesn’t affect this story at all if you haven’t.
“People called their immortal enemies monsters. They called their immortal saviors saints. But they weren’t actually separate species. All that distinguished one immortal from another was surface-level behavior. Specifically—how they behaved towards the human race.”
The characters in this novel are refreshing and original; two immortals, both the last of their kind, a Saint (Carrie) and a Head (Magnolia)—the last of the four monsters known as the Great Adversaries. Their relationship at first is quite toxic (and likely to be uncomfortable for some readers) as Magnolia sadistically controls and demoralises Carrie. Magnolia gets Carrie to free her from her centuries old prison and while the entire escapade is supposedly random, we later discover that a long game has been played. Magnolia is the ideal ‘Villain you love to hate’, a metaphorically and physically heartless villain, but one who is extremely cunning and intelligent. She is certainly a very polarising character and I can see a lot of readers bouncing off her, but there are many layers to Magnolia, and whilst I do not condone a number of Magnolia’s actions, I can see why she behaves like she does.
Carrie does come across and often acts as the more gentle and submissive of the pair; for instance she refuses to kill monsters whilst they are at their most vulnerable, instead she waits until they mature into adults before fighting them to their death, and she is constantly trying and thinking of ways to kill Magnolia. She’s regarded as a Saint due to the utter commitment and care she gave to chosen companions over their lifetime (in exchange for their magic when they died), and benignly walking away if companions renege, but her reminiscent thoughts are…
“It was closest to the feeling of stooping over a human who had loved and trusted her for years, who still loved and trusted her more than anyone mortal. The gutting exhilaration of rummaging about in their flesh, dragging out their brilliant core as if wrenching fruit from a tree. No one ever talked about the ugliness of the corpses left by saints. Whether you ripped out a human’s magic core right away—as monsters did—or claimed it decades later, the culmination of a faithful promise…the end result looked the same. A mangled body, sometimes with a gaping tunnel bored all the way through from belly to spine.”
For me, the weakest part of Carrion Saints was the plot. The theme is recurrent in a couple of Hiyodori’s other novels so I did get a sense of deja vu on occasion.
While it’s certainly not going to be a complete HEA for these two I enjoyed the fact that even monsters can find companionship and love.
Max
I loved this book, as it pulled the hat-trick of completely defying my expectations (I went in blind), while still managing to be both interesting and emotionally moving. The book takes its time watching the main characters evolve, which may be a bit slow paced for all readers, but personally I was captivated. I didn’t mind the pace, as these are two extremely complex characters that warrant a whole novel to explore on their own and their relationship is easily just as complicated.
Ultimately, it’s about two immortals that find themselves forced to be with someone that makes them rethink their lives and what they want. Love is different for every person, and sometimes it can hurt badly. Love always changes us, and change can be painful. We can even believe we hate that change, and yet we are inexplicably drawn back to it.
To paraphrase Raymond Chandler, in The Long Goodbye, another queer romance story: “There’s no deadlier trap than the one you set for yourself.“
Stacey
This was such a weird little book—in the best way. It was unhinged, different, and definitely not something I’ve read before, which I really appreciated. The humour was a big highlight for me too. I especially liked Crow, but Magnolia had me laughing the most.
The romance is a VERY slow burn, and I actually thought it was done really well. That said, I would have happily lived in the “will they/won’t they” stage forever because once they took things to the next level, I was like… hmm, I preferred the tension and bitchy banter. But I also understand that getting to that point was kind of the whole point of the story, so I can’t really complain.
My biggest issue was the length. I liked what the book was doing, but it definitely felt like it could have been shorter. There were moments where I found myself wishing we’d move along a little faster.
Overall, though, I enjoyed the experience. It was strange, funny, occasionally chaotic, and genuinely different from what I usually pick up. This was my first book by Hiyodori, and I’d definitely be curious to see what they write next.
That’s our take on Carrion Saints! Reactions were split down the middle, from readers fully swallowed whole by Hiyodori’s strange, blood-soaked world to a couple of DNFs along the way, but even those who bounced off the pacing came away recognising how singular the book is.
Our Score: 7.22/10
Our Official SPFBO Score: 7/10
Carrion Saints is one of the ten finalists in this year’s SPFBO. Here’s how our current standings look:
- A Light from the Nether by Molly Dowd Sullivan
- Carrion Saints by Hiyodori: 7.22
- Dogged by Michael R. Fletcher
- The Hallows by H. L. Tinsley
- The Honorable Con by Michele C. Shaw
- Jester by Tim Carter
- No More Levels by Benjamin Barreth
- Of Mages and Makers by Rel Carroll: 7.9
- To Touch a Silent Fury by R. A. Sandpiper
- Violence & Vigilance by David T. List
A huge thank you to Hiyodori for putting this book forward, and to all the other teams working through the Finals alongside us. You can see the list of all the finalists and their scores here.
Our judges for Round Two are Adawia, EG, EVA, Kerry, Maureen, Max, Sara, Sherry, Stacey, Tianna, Yaniv, and Julia (me). If you’d like to learn more about us, including our likes and dislikes, you can read about them here.
Any queries should be directed at our editor, Jennie Ivins, via Bluesky, Instagram, or Threads.
