Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin, #1) in Gaston Library

Aug 04, 2012 Jack Goff rated it it was amazing

When Ismae is whisked away from an arranged marriage to an abusive husband and taken to the convent of St. Mortain, she feels as if she has finally found a place where she can belong. Within the walls of the convent, the daughters of Death himself are taught the way of the assassin. Her new skills are put to the test when an assignment carries her from the humble convent into the walls of the palace and right in the middle of a dangerous game of lies and deception. But even she is not prepared f When Ismae is whisked away from an arranged marriage to an abusive husband and taken to the convent of St. Mortain, she feels as if she has finally found a place where she can belong. Within the walls of the convent, the daughters of Death himself are taught the way of the assassin. Her new skills are put to the test when an assignment carries her from the humble convent into the walls of the palace and right in the middle of a dangerous game of lies and deception. But even she is not prepared for the ways of court life or the new feelings at war in her heart. And she begins to discover that Mortain might not be simply a god of death and vengeance, but also one of mercy.

This book far exceeded my expectations. In fact, it blew them out of the water. I felt like I had been transported. The setting is rich and beautiful- mysterious convents and big sprawling palaces and small, quaint villages- and all of the characters that inhabit this world are unique and so believable. Unlike some books where I sometimes find myself unable to distinguish between minor characters, each one in this story was a clear individual with their own agenda and personality. The plot was brilliant. It drew me in and kept me desperate to know what happened next. Every time I sat down to read just a little of the book, I ended up devouring huge sections. After reading books that put the story on the backburner to romance, I was extremely pleased that this book found that perfect balance so that the main story and the story of how characters developed feelings for one another went hand in hand. Instead of the romance part taking away from the story, it enhanced it and made it more intriguing. This story was also a great example of where the author did not shy away from sex, but did not go into such much detail that I thought I was reading a romance novel disguised as a young adult. I also loved that even though there were elements of fantasy in the book, it was not so much that it did not seem believable. There were no overpowered, over-the-top abilities that conveniently popped up right when the characters needed them. Instead the abilities that the characters had had to be nurtured and learned and discovered as the story progressed. I also loved that nothing was as it seemed and there were no black and white, good and bad characters. All of them had their faults and their virtues and all of them had reasons for their actions beyond just being evil for evil’s sake. This is also another example of how you do not need a love triangle or a slutty female character that goes around stringing along every guy that takes her fancy to have a good romance.

Ismae was a wonderful main character. She was strong and independent. She was not like the usual female characters. She started out wanting to use her abilities to take vengeance and to get a kind of justice for things that happened to her in the past, but as the story progressed, she began to change and started using her abilities in a different way. I loved the relationship between her and Duval. It was more realistic. They did not just immediately love one another or even like one another. At the same time they did not hate each other so much that they could not look passed it to work together when they needed to. I loved Duval. He was honorable guy and that is something that there are not many of nowadays. Guys that do not cheat on people with no consequences, guys that are more honest about their feelings, guys that stand up for others. This book was filled with strong female characters and I really liked that about it. I also liked that even while the girls were strong, all of the men were not portrayed as being terrible.

I adored this book. It had everything that I loved and more. I cannot wait to read the next book in the series!
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