Review: The Starving Saints
Medieval horror that powerfully subverts the concept of divine intervention.
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The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling is one of my favorite books of 2025.
Aymar Castle is under siege, and its people are starving. Just as they resort to cannibalism, the Saints they worship miraculously arrive, in the flesh, with a bountiful feast. From there, the castle descends into a bacchanal of madness, and only three women—a witch tasked with creating an impossible miracle, a knight who both protects and resents her, and a resourceful young woman who is no stranger to trauma—can see the Saints’ awful truth.
Once the Saints arrive—which is both earlier and later than you might think—the pacing becomes relentless, building to a sublime crescendo of dread. The mystery of what, exactly, the Saints are is central to the plot, and it’ll keep you guessing: every time I thought I had them figured out, a new revelation turned my theory on its head.
“What can be worse than what we are driven to, when all else is lost? Doesn’t it all become the same, then?”
This is medieval horror that powerfully subverts the concept of divine intervention. It starts grim, offers deliverance, then pivots into delicious madness. Its broad tonal arc ranges from the gritty, grounded fantasy of George R.R. Martin, all the way to the unhinged cosmic horror of Clive Barker. And in the end, when we learn the truth of the Saints—and the truth of the siege—well, I won’t spoil it, but it’s so worth the ride.
