I Can’t Wait For…The Twice-Drowned Saint by C.S.E. Cooney

Posted 14th December 2022 by Sia in Can't-Wait Wednesday / 0 Comments

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine

This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is The Twice-Drowned Saint by C.S.E. Cooney!

The Twice-Drowned Saint by C.S.E. Cooney
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 7th February 2023
Goodreads

"World Fantasy Award winner Cooney imagines angels as Lovecraftian monsters . . . Plenty of charm!"
—Publishers Weekly

"Many have spoken about how angels can be both terrifying yet beautiful, but few have successfully captured the idea well-until The Twice-Drowned Saint, at least. A sumptuous, saw-toothed read, it is a jewel box of a novel, glittering with a thousand details and a bright longing we're all familiar with, this want for a place better than we're in now."
—Cassandra Khaw, Bram Stoker and World Fantasy award-nominated author of Nothing but Blackened Teeth

World Fantasy Award winner C. S. E. Cooney takes readers on a journey of wonder, terror, and joy in this mind-bending, heartfelt novel. Contained inside impassable walls of ice, the city of Gelethel endures under the rule of fourteen angels, who provide for all their subject's needs and mete out grisly punishments for blasphemous infractions, with escape attempts one of the worst possible sins.

"Our narrator is Ishtu Q'Aleth (Ish for short), the new owner of Gelethel's only cinema (having taken over from her father). More importantly, she's also the secret saint of Alizar the Eleven-Eyed, Seventh Angel of Gelethel, and one of the fourteen angels who holds dominion over the city. As Ish explains it, at the age of eight she turned down Alizar's offer to be his saint, but, in a moment that speaks to the novel's charm, the young girl and the all-knowing angel agreed to continue their relationship in secret after bonding over their shared love of cinema. Near thirty years later Ish is desperate to get her sick parents out of the city, a near-impossible task given Gelethel is surrounded by an impenetrable blue serac. But Ish's situation grows even more complicated when a new arrival to the city, a girl named Betony, appears as Alizar's true saint. There's so much to adore about the The Twice-Drowned Saint ... [a] sublime short novel."
—Locus

"With The Twice-Drowned Saint, C. S. E. Cooney once again crafts dazzling feats of imagination grounded in human frailties and plunges her audience inside head-first. Her boldly unique characters live in a fever dream of balletic, graceful description that will make you gasp, even as they find their own escape through the seemingly-mundane world of movies. Like nothing else you've ever read, or will ever read."
—Randee Dawn, author of Tune in Tomorrow

"Fabulous Gelethel is a city of godless angels who intoxicate themselves on human death, but within its icy walls a hidden saint and a dissident angel are hatching a plan. This story left me wrecked and rebuilt: it's a truly glorious tale of family bonds, forgiveness, sacrifice, courage ... and how gods are born. Written with Cooney's signature soaring prose, humor, and imagination, this tale shines a light on cruelties both fantastical and familiar. It honors sorrow and embraces joy-I will treasure it always"
—Francesca Forrest, author of The Inconvenient God

"The way Cooney does world building, she makes the world absolutely gigantic, and then she focuses the lens onto these intimate moments in people's lives . . . My clumsy words don't do justice to The Twice Drowned Saint. Just read it. It is a sunrise, where all things are beautiful and possible, and it is blood on the ground surrounded by those who lap it up, hungering for more. This is one of the best pieces of fiction I've read this year."
—Little Red Reviewer

Cover art, cover design and interior black and white illustrations by Lasse Paldanius.

It goes without saying at this point that if CSE Cooney writes it, I will read it. It’s a natural law. Like gravity. What goes up must come down; Sia reads CSE Cooney.

(Did I set up the Goodreads page for this book? Yes, yes I did. What on earth are Goodreads Librarian powers for if not making sure your most-anticipated reads are on Goodreads for other readers to find???)

Cooney originally won me over with her amazing take on the Fae (see Desdemona and the Deep and/or Dark Breakers, the latter reviewed by me here), then sealed the deal with necromancers (Saint Death’s Daughter, reviewed here). Now we get to see her take on angels! As I’ve occasionally mentioned, I’m an armchair angelologist and love digging into angelic lore, and from the cover alone I’m confident that this isn’t going to be a book about fluffy human-looking creatures with feathery wings (which bore me to tears) but STRANGE AND EERIE UNHUMAN BEINGS BEYOND MORTAL COMPREHENSION!

I mean…look at that cover. Just look at it. LOOKING AT IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY. It’s utterly strange and utterly gorgeous and packed full of beautiful little details, and I hope the artist is immensely proud of themselves!

From what I understand, The Twice-Drowned Saint was originally a novella included in A Sinister Quartet, which was a collection of novellas from a few different authors. I believe the new version has been polished and possibly expanded upon, but I would be reading it even if it had not been, so. Makes no difference to me!

I have gleefully begun reading my ARC and placed my preorder with the publisher, and honestly, I can say right now that you should do the same!

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