Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin, #1) by R.L. LaFeversMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I've been thinking about how I wanted to approach this review for the past couple days. The thing was I fully expected to not like this book, I mean teenage assassin nuns? There were hundreds of ways the author could bungle a story with a synopsis like that. I had it on my TBR-pile thinking I'd forget about it, but then NetGalley decided that for two days they would have this book auto-approved to requesters, so I flippantly decided to get it because I can't resist a free read. Let me just say I was wrong in just as many hundreds of ways I thought it would be a lousy story, it was in fact one of the best YA books I've read in a long, long time.
The first unique thing you notice about this story is the time period. I'm no historical buff, but you don't' normally find books set in Europe in the 1400s, YA or not. We breeze through Ismae's humble beginnings, zoom through her training at the convent, and at this point I still remained skeptical. Then someone shows up and the real meat of the story begins. I could not put it down, but it was so good I was also kicking myself for reading it too fast because I wanted to savor this story. Ismae is true to her characterization throughout. She wants to serve her god and the best way she happens to know how to do that is fighting and killing. Other aspects of her life are of next to no interest to her next to succeeding in every assignment for Mortain (the god of death).
When her duty leaves her floundering at some points, she has to fight with what she must do, but also what she knows in her heart. Her heart leads me to Duval, such a wonderful character and the perfect balance to Ismae. The romance is touching and sincere in a way I can't seem to find in a lot of the paranormal YA out there now. This book was just exceptional and I would recommend it to fans of Juliet Marillier and Cinda Williams Chima, two of my favorite authors. Grave Mercy read more as a historical YA, but it had touches of the mystical that kept the story exciting. Definitely recommended and I even pre-ordered my own copy on Amazon (damn you Netgalley!! lol). Author's Website: http://www.robinlafevers.com/ Copy Source: Free copy from NetGalley
