AUTHOR: Robin LaFevers
STARTED: August 17, 2012
FINISHED: September 6, 2012
PAGES: 560
GENRE: Fiction
FIRST SENTENCE: I bear a deep red stainthat runs from my left shoulder down to my right hip, a trail left by a herbwitch's poison that my mother used to try to expel me from her womb.
SUMMARY: [From Barnes and Noble] Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes
from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the
convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old.
Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with
dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the
convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to
Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others. Ismae’s most important assignment takes her straight into the high
court of Brittany—where she finds herself woefully under prepared—not
only for the deadly games of intrigue and treason, but for the
impossible choices she must make. For how can she deliver Death’s
vengeance upon a target who, against her will, has stolen her heart?
THOUGHTS: Hoo-Boy did this book hit the right spot. I eagerly anticipated reading it each night. Then, when I started to read it, I didn't want to stop. I kept asking for one more chapter until The Boyfriend would pout at me to turn out the light so that I wouldn't be a cranky-sleepy bear in the morning. I love it when that happens.
Ismae is our teenage heroine who toes the delicate line between being headstrong and TSTL, and she does so successfully. Sure there were a few times I was like, "Don't do it!" but for the most part I found her character fascinating and willful without being frivolous and stupid. Gotta love balanced females. Our hero, Duval, is handsome with dashing daring do but still has a few flaws (and family baggage to boot). Yes, he is closer to "too perfect" for my liking, but the two still work as together as a pair trying to solve the political plots occuring in Brittany. Throw is a wonderful cast of secondary characters and the plots-afoot are fun to read.
LaFevers is writing is a wonderful balance of description and action. She explains this enough to give you a wonderful mental image of the scene without devolving in purple prose territory. She also manages to keep the book well-paced, interspersing periods of action with moments of pause, all while maintaining that je ne sais quoi that makes you want to keep reading.
Also, bonus points to LaFevers for basically making her lead character a minion of death. The world development was fascinating. It was magical without being too fantastical for my taste. The conclusion of the book (where Ismae develops her own character) was perfect.
I will say this, I was bummed that this was technically a Young Adult book. I kept expecting it to turn into a romance novel and was mildly disappointed that it did not. Nonetheless, I am eagerly anticipating the rest of the books in this series.
RATING: 8/10 [Terrific]
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