ARC Book Review: The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke

The Assassin's Curse

Cassandra Rose Clarke

ARC Disclaimer: I was not paid in any way by the publishers to review this book favourably. The review is my own honest opinion (Whether or not it is agreed with). 

Publication Date: October 2nd 2012

Publisher: Strange Chemistry

Pages: 416

Genre:  Adventure, Young Adult

Ananna of the Tanarau is the eldest daughter of a highly-ranked family in the loose assortment of cutthroats and thieves in the Pirate's Confederation. When she runs away from the marriage her parents have arranged for her, they hire Naji the assassin to murder her.

When a mysterious woman in a dress shop offers her magical assistance for dealing with the assassin, Ananna accepts. She never went in much for magic herself -- she lacks the talent for it -- but she's not quite ready to die yet, either. Unfortunately, the woman's magic fails.

Fortunately, Ananna inadvertently saves the assassin's life in the skirmish, thus activating a curse that had been placed on him a few years earlier. Now, whenever her life is in danger, he must protect her -- or else he experiences tremendous physical pain. Neither Ananna nor the assassin, Naji, are pleased about this development.

Follow Ananna and Naji as they sail across the globe, visiting such mysterious places as the Court of Salt and Waves, in their desperate effort to lift the curse. Soon they will discover that only by completing three impossible tasks will they be able to set themselves free.

I went into this book going: Pirates and Assassins, just what I want to read. And indeed, there were many pirates and assassins, adventure and magic, desert and ocean and yet very clearly only the beginning.

The Assassin's Curse has a very strong "Pirates of the Carribean" feel to it, not because they both of pirates, but the way the adventure and magic are woven together instead make it so. I will admit the beginning started a bit shaky. I wasn't sure if I was going to enjoy the book at that part, but as soon as our "hero" was introduced the novel truly kicked off I was hooked, completely forgetting that I ever doubted it.

The heroine is feisty and ruthless, while our assassin is ironically the more compassionate one, and not so ironically a calm, composed type. The prose is fast paced (which I why it was so shaky in the beginning) which fits the adventure theme completely and the descriptions made it easy to imagine the fantasy world that Clarke had created.

The book became completely and utterly addictive as soon as they got to the island. The magic and danger of the place took things up a notch and I kept (figuratively) turning page after page, so much that when I came to the end, I was so sure that it was a mistake, that there were a few more chapters at least, that my copy of the galley was incomplete.

I recommend this to people who want to read a fast-paced adventure novel, also to anyone who likes pirates and superstition.

3.5 Bookmarks

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