Grave Mercy
(His Fair Assassin #1)
By: Robin LaFevers
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: April 3, 2012
Genre: YA Historical Fiction
Rating:
Why be the sheep, when you can be the wolf?
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?
The book starts out showing you how rough of a life Ismae has had. Her mother tried to expel her from her womb with a poison that has left a hideous scar on her back. She’s pretty much been shunned by everyone in her village and her father doesn’t hesitate to be rid of her and arranges a marriage to a man whom knows nothing about her and is non too thrilled to find that she has been touched by Death. That is when she is whisked away to the convent where she is shone her true potential as an assassin. She is still a novice when she is sent to accompany Duval to Court as his mistress. However, while at court Ismae unlocks a lot of secrets and starts to question her faith in the convent and her feelings for Duval.
I liked Ismae’s character and liked watching her grow and become more confident in herself. But I must say that my favorite characters was the Beast. Duval’s right hand man, who is unfortunate enough to have a deformed face (hence the nickname) but deep down he is a caring guy who would do anything for those under his protection. I don’t know why I found myself gravitating to him when he wasn’t in the story that much but there was just something about him that grabbed my attention every time he appeared in the book.
I found the world that LaFevers created to be very interesting. A convent of assassins who’s purpose is to carry out the wish of the Saint of Death? Sign me up! The only reason why it got 3 stars is because well, did you see the amount of pages in this book? At first I thought that maybe there was an extra story at the end but nope, it’s all one book. There is a lot of talking going on while Ismae is at court and although some of it is relevant to the story, a lot of it is not. And when you have a book that is that long… well I sort of skimmed over the random babble going on in the story so that I could get back to the important parts.
“Are men truly such idiots that they cannot resist two orbs of flesh?”- Ismae
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