Scorched Grace

3.5 stars

I picked this up for the cover, and because I love new Orleans.
Seems I rather like a tattooed guy nun who's hiding from her past too.
The more we went into the story, and delved into why our sister Holiday had found herself there, the more I liked her.
She's a character I'm going to be looking out for again.
The actual villain of this piece wasn't too hard to guess.
This book was a fun read.

This was a super interesting book that I think will appeal to both old and novice mystery lovers! It was fresh and original, with a fantastic main character and I was hooked all the way through.

“Holy Mary mother of God, let the afterlife have central air and hot women.”

Sister Holiday, a lesbian punk rocker turned nun, puts her amateur sleuthing skills to the test when a serial arsonist strikes the school she teaches at and lives are lost in this debut novel by Margot Douaihy.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this fresh take on the adult crime genre. However, while it was a crime novel at heart, the thing I found most compelling was Sister Holiday’s characterisation. Douaihy revealed her backstory at an excellent pace, maintaining my interest the whole way through. The flashbacks were well integrated and didn’t detract from the story. The description of the setting was evocative. Furthermore, the plot thickened as the story progressed, which built suspense.

I have a few minor quibbles. Firstly, I found it unrealistic how Sister Holiday managed to find evidence that the police had missed within seconds of arriving on the scene. It felt like her reactions to events were a little disproportionate at times too. Unfortunately, I also found the big reveal easily predictable.

That said, I always looked forward to sitting down with this book. I definitely recommend it!

Trigger/content warnings (TW/CW): organised religion (Catholicism), wound detail, blood, death, murder, arson, fire, alcohol consumption, drug use, animal death, mention of suicide by hanging, brief scene where a character talks another down from self-immolation, rape including gang rape, abuse, homophobia, homophobic slurs, character who is kicked out because of his sexuality, sec scenes (not overly explicit, but present nonetheless), cheating, passing mention of conversion therapy, passing mention of school shooting, passing mention of self-harm, passing mention of therapy