The Lost Saint - Bree Despain

Grace Divine made the ultimate sacrifice to cure Daniel Kalbi.  She gave her soul to the wolf to save him and lost her beloved brother.  When Grace receives a haunting phone call from Jude, she knows what she must do.  She must become a Hound of Heaven.  Desparate to find Jude, Grace befriends Talbot - a newcomer to town who promises her that he can help her be a hero.  But as the two grow closer, the wolf grows in Grace, and her relationship with Daniel begins to crumble.  Unaware of the dark path she is walking, Grace becomes prideful in her new abilities - not realizing that an old enemy has returned and deadly trap is about to be sprung.

This book was an excellent middle book. I struggled with it in the beginning, but only because I hate when characters I seriously love are having so much trouble. But once it got going, it really took off and was almost impossible to put down. There were so many WTF?? and NO WAY!! moments, especially at the end, that it blew me away. And the ending was seriously one of the meanest cliffhangers I've read in a long time. She joins the ranks of Cassandra Clare, Maggie Stiefvater, and Richelle Mead as authors who make waiting for the next book SO much harder than it needs to be. Honestly ladies, you torture me.

While Grace is struggling to stay connected to Daniel and trying to find Jude, she's really discovering what she wants out of life and how to connect to her new powers. It's heartbreaking to see how Jude's leaving has affected the family and what that has done for Grace's options for her future. And my heart was aching over pretty much everything with Daniel. Bree has excellently written the characters in Grace's life so that you never really quite know who to trust, which makes for an exciting read. And the ending - the villain, the sacrifices, the consequences....so, so amazing. I was practically in tears by the time I was done. December seems much too far away to have to wait for the next book.

5/5

The Lost Saint
Bree Despain
EgmontUSA
416 pages
$17.99 (hardcover)