There Are No Saints

Sinners Duet #1

By Sophie Lark

TheStory

At an art showing one night, Cole notices Mara when someone spills wine on her white dress. Rather than doing anything Cole expects, Mara takes another glass of wine to the restroom and comes out with a red-wine tie-dyed dress. 

Cole’s rival in the art world, Shaw, notices Cole watching and assumes Cole is interested in Mara. Instead of trying to woo Mara, Shaw kidnaps her, almost kills her and leaves her near an abandoned mine shaft for Cole to do with what he wants. Because Cole and Shaw are not just rivals in the art world, but rival serial killers as well.

While Mara lies bleeding to death in the dirt, Cole appears. She begs him to save her. But she disgusts him with her weakness and he merely… steps over her, leaving her to die. When Cole sees her several days later, he is intrigued. Now, his obsession begins. 

TheReview

This was a super fast read. The book is just over 250 pages and I read it very quickly. While it is obviously about serial killers, it was actually not that dark, in my opinion. It was more of an interesting story, just traversing the world of grey morals. 

Mara is a struggling artist, living with a bunch of struggling artists, and working multiple jobs in between trying to create her art. She was an honest-to-goodness, down to earth character. She was well rounded out, with good development and background. She has demons and issues that haunt her but she doesn’t let them take over her life or her inner monologue. 

Cole is an actual psychopath so… disclaimer. He doesn’t feel the normal range of emotions but rather he mimics them for others to see what he wants them to see. Even when dealing with Mara, it’s more of an obsession and desire to tame her than it is real emotions on his part. In this same vein, Shaw is also a psychopath but he’s more unhinged. 

As a side note - Cole’s inner monologuing was super funny to read. And, his obsession with Mara, also funny. Like he doesn’t fully comprehend how human emotions work but he’s getting all out of sorts watching Mara. He was disgusted by her just being a natural human, but also fascinated.

He’s a monster. And a dreamboat. Their first meeting (after the scene where he found her literally dying), he is so mean to her. I loved it. He preys on her insecurities. Although he is trying to be horrible, he is also curious how she will respond to him, which is what makes it all the more interesting. He is truly just curious how her humanity will surface when he pulls her strings like a little puppet. 

Also, Mara is stupid. Just as a note for anyone curious about how a woman ends up dating someone she knows is a serial killer. The only way for it to seem remotely reasonable is that she is dumb. But she’s not so dumb that her character suffers for it. It’s just a writing justification for why she would even consider dating a psychopath. 

It’s a short and easy read. I loved it. And I’m so happy it’s a duet because one book would not have been enough to get this good of a storyline across, unless the book was over 500 pages.

TheRating

Storyline: 5/5

Characters: 5/5

World Building: N/A 

Writing: 5/5

Overall: 📘📘📘📘📘

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ (not a lot of spicey scenes but the scenes that were spicy, were spiiiiicy)

Sinners Duet

There Are No Saints

Sinners Duet #1

There Is No Devil

Sinner’s Duet #2