Disclaimers:
- I don't usually like short stories, nor do I usually enjoy fairytale-style prose.
- I know next to nothing about our real life stories of saints nor how they came to be, so I have no idea how faithful this is to how that kind of story really works or how/why saints are created...
- I read the Kindle version, not the full colour hardback, the pictures of which I've seen online do look lovely so I may buy a hard copy to add to my collection, it would admittedly have added to my enjoyment...

I was mostly a bit baffled reading this, I didn't really get it because other than the obvious connections with characters or Saints that pop up in the books, I couldn't for example really see connections to the 'real' magic, that we know about, in the Grishaverse.

and to be honest I'm still baffled about the Thorn Wood events in the King of Scars duology, cool as Zoya's dragon is.

Maybe that's the point, these people became Saints in this world because their magic was inexplicable (as well as the fact that they usually either sacrificed themselves, or were killed, in some way), and stories passed down through generations get skewed or more mysterious or told wrongly

like Ilya's

. Also, it wasn't always clear about which country the events were taking place in (nor which time period, given the last couple obviously took place much, much later), unless we were to assume Ravka if not told otherwise...

In general, I dunno, it all felt a bit odd to me and I didn't really connect with it at all and for now, it hasn't added anything to the Grishaverse for me. The one story I did like was that of Sankta Marya, who created the caves, but that's because I love geology...
Perhaps if I get a hard copy and read it more slowly rather than quickly all in one go, I'd get more out of it.