GRAVE MERCY (My Fair Assassin) Review

Grave Mercy (My Fair Assassin #1)
R.L. LaFevers


Rating: 5+
Receives the "Kick Ass" award - for the best descriptions of fighting, assassinating and other deadly skills that kept this bookworm in suspense!


“So.... You are well equipped for our service.' 
'Which is?' 
'We kill people.”


Ismae is no ordinary seventeen year-old girl. Left with a brutal scar on her body - a reminder of how her mother wished to be rid of her before she was even born - and no desire to be the property of men, she finds a means of escape from her bleak future. That means is the fact that she is one of the daughters of the god of Death Himself. St Mortain. If she so chooses, she shall be given the chance to become his handmaiden, to become a member of his convent. When Ismae chooses to accept the opportunity, she does so without hesitation.


Ismae is given the chance for a new life - a life that involves taking the lives of others, those which have been 'marqued' by Mortain. In order to fulfil her role as a novice in Mortain's convent, Ismae hones her deadly abilities, killing on command and becoming a stealthy and accomplished assassin. She feels confident in her abilities and sure in her faith in her god. But the words of the seeress of her convent haunt her: “... true faith never comes without anguish.”


Little does she understand those wise words until she is given her hardest assignment yet.


In the high court of Brittany, intrigue and witty remarks mask the simmering of wicked plots and treason. Ismae is sent there, in the company of the duchess' disapproving half-brother Duval, to spy on him and his family, to act against the French and to carry out the will of Mortain. Having thought herself more than up to the task, she finds to her disappointment that she is - for all her low birth - woefully ignorant of the situations and people that she encounters. Torn between duty to her convent, to Mortain and to her country, Ismae refuses to acknowledge a truth that is gaining clarity the more time she spends in the company of others. The truth that maybe the wishes, of those to whom she owes everything, are wrong. 


With elegance, finesse, deadly humour, dedication, skill and only the slightest hesitance, Ismae plays both her role as a bystander in court and as Death's handmaiden to perfection. She finds herself warming to those around her, though she tries her hardest to harden her heart, of a handmaiden of Death cannot give their heart to anyone or anything besides Death himself. Then, suddenly, she is given an order to extract vengeance. An order that will make her question everything she knows and believes in. An order to kill a soul that she has, against her every wish, fallen deeply in love with. 


This story will steal your heart and your soul, as you become enamoured with the world that R.L.LaFevers has created and the terrible yet intriguing character of Ismae - the Daughter of Death