There Are No Saints by Sophie Lark (Sinner’s Duet #1)

She thinks she isn’t scared of monsters? I’ll show her a f*cking demon out of hell.

Cole Blackwell

4.5 ⭐s to this little dirty thing we have here lol. 💖

Hello friends! I am back with a new book review for today. It was the first book I finished in February and I must say that I loved it so much that it hurts to think about it right now. While I was preparing my possible “reading list” for 2023, this book was the first one that I wrote and I am glad I finished it this early in the year. It was a striking dark romance and I cannot wait to explain why.

After reading The Mindf*ck series, I quickly realized that I love serial killer/murder crime books with a steamy twist. I do love reading a good murder/crime book, I always did but it has been so long since I read one that I didn’t really remember the thrill of them. Of course, you cannot expect the same intense thrill in a dark romance book because it is focused on the romance/steam aspect but it is still good to see characters with issues. I am not talking about daddy issues my friends, I am talking about entirely psychotic characters who are prone to kill or do kill regularly. There Are No Saints is a unique example of that genre. We have our deliciously written male lead Cole Blackwell, an artist known in the city, an artistic genius, ruthless killer, cold as the polar point and one of the meanest characters I’ve read so far. Then we have our struggling but talented artist, Mara Eldritch, a survivor of an abusive family, working in various jobs while trying to do art. She is a talented fella, her brain works differently than the others in the book and she catches the attention of a monster. Well, two monsters to be exact. I want to go into detail but since it will be a major spoiler, I will directly jump to the time when she manages to become Cole’s protege. Cole Blackwell is a man of fear and he shows it in every possible way. The way he is so obsessed with Mara freaked me out a couple of times (especially watching her from the window scene under the rain holy f*ck it was so HOT) however it is understandable for me since he is actually a psychopath. It doesn’t say in the book that he is but considering that he “fillet people with precision” we can assume that he has the tendencies at least. I loved how his character didn’t falter during the book, even the way he was wanting Mara to be “his” was completely out of normal.

I do not really like it when authors actually offer you a psychotic character and change it at the end under the name of “love” (you may remember my review of God of Malice), but Cole… Cole was intact like a real deal and I loved it. The way he wanted her was more like he being his trophy than love and it was realistic to me, I found it easier to justify his feelings towards her because he was aware that these feelings were new to him as well. Whether he helped Mara just because of his obsession or whatever you want to call it, I genuinely enjoyed reading that freak’s point of view. Catch me outside huh Blackwell?

The writing of the book was nice, however for the first time in a good while, I wanted a book to be longer. I rarely think this towards books because often I find the book-length aligning with the story and rarely, some books do feel too long, but this felt rushed above everything else. I could’ve read another hundred pages for the steamy scenes. The kiss scenes and the times they talked felt too rushed, I felt like the author wanted to focus on the crime aspect of the book in the last half but since there wasn’t enough build-up towards it (or anger from Mara, need for an act of revenge, nothing literally she just accepted the hell it happened and moved on) so everything felt… incomplete. I expected Mara to seek the person who hurt her, seek that bastard and make sure that he is not able to do it again to anyone, but nope. Nothing happened. She is shown as a strong, independent girl with “I bow to nobody” vibes but to be honest, in the beginning, she accepted what happened to her… she had lost me there. I cannot say that this only makes a book bad or unreadable for me, it did make me “meh” as I kept reading. Other than accepting her fate like that, I liked Mara a lot. She is clever, fairly annoying and strong. I liked that she had a posture to stand against the odds. The fact that she managed to put everything together, in the end, was also nice. She showed some backbone by showing up in his house, knowing what he did, or possibly do as well. I like her senseless bravery, she has the guts to overcome what came to her and I am glad that she is like that. These kinds of characters make a book particularly good.

The last thing I want to talk about is the last 40 pages. WOW. It was so hot that it hurt me to read it. Her fearlessness towards him, him not understanding what is he feeling, him understanding that he needs to protect her… It was so well done and had a perfect ending to the book. Though I wish she listened to Cole and let him handle it she had lost someone important (whoops) so it is understandable that she was hysterical. But overall, this was a magnificent read for me and I highly suggest you read so!

Until I see you in my next post! 🌸