Thanks to Netgally and Kathryn Combs for letting me read this one early.
This was an awesome sci-fi adventure. Compelling from start to finish. The world building and lore felt full and well rounded and really made this an easy to grasp and delve into sci fi adventure. Can’t wait to read more of Kathryn Combs work!

Unfortunately I had to DNF this. Thank you for allowing me to read and review though! From the little I read, I couldn’t connect with the writing style or the main character. It felt monotonous and without feeling. The info dumping in the second chapter didn’t help either. Hopefully this will fit better someone who likes this kind of writing style and lots of details in their books.

It was a little different than the genres I usually read, but I liked it.
Hella was a very interesting character and I really wanted more romance and more of Xavier, since I am used to reading romantasies.
The book had a very religion lean to it which was also interesting to read. I liked the world-building, the sci-fi setting of the book. And since I love dark plots, plot twists, challenging concepts and suspence, I read it fast.
It felt slow a little at times, the story dragging.

Sancta Femina feels like an invocation—a love letter to divine femininity in all its broken, wild, radiant forms. Kathryn Combs doesn’t just write poetry; she summons it, wrapping vulnerability in velvet and thorns. This book doesn’t ask permission to be felt—it simply is.

Pros:
• The language is lush, almost ethereal at times. There’s a reverence for womanhood that feels sacred without being inaccessible.
• It balances strength and softness in a way that made me pause and breathe more than once.
• You can feel the healing woven into the verses—it’s deeply affirming, especially for anyone navigating self-discovery or spiritual reconnection.

Cons:
• Some poems leaned more abstract, which occasionally made the meaning a little slippery or elusive.
• The spiritual undertones might not resonate with every reader—but for me, they added depth.

This collection felt like sitting in a circle with women who carry centuries of stories, grief, resilience, and magic. It’s empowering without being loud, and gentle without losing its edge. Definitely a book I’ll return to when I need to remember my own sacredness.

A lot is going on in Sancta Femina, which smashes up a post-apocalyptic humanity tale, with future war, the discovery of faster-than-light travel, the cost of longevity treatments and religious terrorism all as distinct plot points around a lead character with auspicious genetics. I wonder if this has gone through a lot of iterations, because it feels like the religious stuff is supposed to be more important than it ends up being, the religion of the post-apocalyptic sect is unclear, and while it takes on bits of Christianity, it isn't a direct line from Catholicism. In many ways, this aspect of the plot seems taken from a bunch of seventies religious horrors where science meets religion for nefarious reasons, and this has the flaws of those (how can you prove what has happened, would people really care).

Nevertheless, the packed nature of Sancta Femina means there's something for everyone here. It is at its best at the start, when our protagonist Hella Nazari wakes up in an escape pod and has to trek across an alien world to safety. She's an engaging lead and the alone time sets her backstory and the world building up well. Once she reaches the near-deserted base, she reconnects with her brother who is in the thrall of the religious terrorist who has, in the twenty years she's been in cryosleep, been responsible for a nuclear attack on Earth. He is also responsible for her birth, which does beg the question why she was left for twenty years. There are a few connective plot issues like this in the book, which you have to roll with as the plot moves on, but does make it less satisfying.

Sancta Femina is a solid bit of sci-fi adventuring which never quite hits the highs its complex set-up wants it to. It never gets better than its initial base escape segment, and its final section feels rushed (though I was happy that it had a definite denouement). An enjoyable if messy read, it never quite justifies its central plot reveal.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me a digital copy of this book to review.

This book is Sci-fi so it’s not amongst the usual genre of fiction that I read, so I did struggle a little to begin with to get into the story but once I did I was hooked. I started this book around 7pm and it’s nearly 1pm as I have just finished it. This is a dystopian novel set in the future after humanity has nearly ruined the Earth and all the continents have merged as one. The book is told from one point of view, Hella is a solider and has just watched her planet and ship be distroyed. Hella finds herself at the whim of a mad scientist who has mysterious plans for her.

While I did enjoy this book parts of it where a bit far fetched but as I said earlier sci-fi isn’t really my genre, if sci-fi is its your thing than this book is for you. There is a tiny bit of romance in this book and it’s only a small part of the book, I really did want more of Hella and Xavier on the book. I’m hoping that in future books they will be more? If so I will definitely pick up the next book.