Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jul 2020
352 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
The dangerous magic of The Night Circus meets the powerful historical exploration of The Underground Railroad in Alaya Dawn Johnson's timely and unsettling novel, set against the darkly glamorous backdrop of New York City, where an assassin falls in love and tries to change her fate at the dawn of World War II.
Amid the whir of city life, a young woman from Harlem is drawn into the glittering underworld of Manhattan, where she's hired to use her knives to strike fear among its most dangerous denizens.
Ten years later, Phyllis LeBlanc has given up everything―not just her own past, and Dev, the man she loved, but even her own dreams.
Still, the ghosts from her past are always by her side―and history has appeared on her doorstep to threaten the people she keeps in her heart. And so Phyllis will have to make a harrowing choice, before it's too late―is there ever enough blood in the world to wash clean generations of injustice?
Trouble the Saints is a dazzling, daring novel―a magical love story, a compelling exposure of racial fault lines―and an altogether brilliant and deeply American saga.
"In musical prose, [Johnson] offers passionate and painful depictions of the love expressed in romance and friendship and the sacrifices such love can demand. A sad, lovely, and blood-soaked song of a book." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"With a sweeping but overstuffed plot, dynamic characters, and style to spare, this alternate history demands the reader's full attention. Fans of challenging, diverse fantasy will enjoy this literary firecracker." - Publishers Weekly
"Juju assassins, alternate history, a gritty New York crime story... in a word: awesome" - N.K. Jemisin, New York Times bestselling author of The Fifth Season
"Beware this magnificent beguilement of a novel: once begun, Alaya Dawn Johnson's Trouble the Saints won't let you go." - Kelly Link, New York Times bestselling author of Get In Trouble
This information about Trouble the Saints was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Alaya Dawn Johnson has been recognized for her short fiction and YA novels, winning the 2015 Nebula Award for Best Novelette for "A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai'i," which also appears in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy (2015), guest edited by Joe Hill. Her debut YA novel, The Summer Prince, was longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. Her follow up YA novel, Love Is the Drug, won the Andre Norton Award in 2015. A native of Washington, D.C., Johnson is currently based in Mexico City, where she received a masters degree in Mesoamerican studies and sings in a blues band.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
