The Assassin's Curse

The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke is the author's debut novel, out on October 2nd from Strange Chemistry, the new YA imprint of Angry Robot Books. I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of this novel from the publisher for review purposes.

The (slightly truncated because spoilers) blurb from the publisher:

Ananna of the Tanarau abandons ship when her parents try to marry her off to an allying pirate clan. But that only prompts the scorned clan to send an assassin after her. And when Ananna faces him down one night, armed with magic she doesn't really know how to use, she accidentally activates a curse binding them together. 

First things first: this is a great book. The blurb ticks a lot of boxes of awesome (pirates, assassins, show more hilarious curses) and the book itself did not disappoint.

Annana is a 17 year old pirate, born and raised by her parents on a pirate ship. When she runs away from a marriage to a stupid pretty boy, her plan is to eventually get herself a ship (or a place on one to start) and return to her normal life. Instead, she's stuck with Naji, an assassin, protecting her when she can look after herself well enough. If she wanders too far from him or gets into any danger, even the sort she can no trouble getting out of, he feels physical pain.

The interplay between the two characters was very interesting. They both end up protecting each other. Naji, particularly, needs more help from Annana than one might expect from a member of a secret order of magical assassins. Annana is mostly happy to fend for herself but is stuck with Naji and doesn't actually wish him harm since he's stopped trying to assassinate her. I liked that Annana can fight with a sword or knife competently and that this makes perfect sense (because she's a pirate).

One thing in this book that really made me happy was Annana wanting to be captain of her own ship one day. I mean, on the face of it, it's not unusual, but in the story world it is unusual for a woman to captain a ship. Better yet, she is keen to learn navigation and maths and she's competent at these things when she learns them and enjoys them and this made me squee. Far too often, especially in non-SF books, characters (and, quite frankly, real people) say things like "oh, I don't like/understand/know maths!" without considering the implications. Maths is useful and important and, as delightfully emphasised by Clarke, essential to certain tasks, like navigating a ship across the sea/ocean. <3

The Assassin's Curse is set in a fantasy land, partly in a sort of deserty Arabian area, partly on a ship and partly on a northern island. The settings are broad and given the context, I was glad to see that the people were mostly shades of brown (as opposed to white people in the desert for no logical reason).

The only thing that I didn't love about this book was that it took a little while for Annana's voice to feel natural. Written in first person, there were a few times near the start where it felt a little bit awkward, but not for any definite reason I could put my finger on. She talks like a pirate (think Mal from Firefly or Jack Sparrow with less "Yarr!") and by about half way through, I felt like her voice had settled into a rhythm and I didn't notice it anymore. In any case, it definitely didn't detract from the story itself.

This is an excellent debut and a great YA novel. I recommend it to all lovers of fantasy, YA and adult. Although it's on the short side for an adult book, I still feel adult fantasy readers would enjoy it. It's also a good place to start if you're looking for a less conventional setting.

4.5 / 5 stars

You can read more of my reviews on my blog, Tsana's Reads. show less

Silk gowns and pirate boots!

This is a gem of a novel with all the desired accoutrements.
A strong, coltish female lead, a disfigured deadly stranger of the shadows, deep running magical plots, self-centered attractive women of ethereal slenderness and magical mayhem, and attendant invasive worlds. Great!
Our star is Ananna a pirate captain’s daughter who absconds rather than make a marriage of alliance with the son of a rival pirate clan.
Strangely thoughtful, Ananna has all of a young adult’s attendant awkwardness as she strives to workout her destiny.
I loved the description of her in her silk marriage dress and clunky pirate boots fleeing the wedding proposal with requisite camel.
Her refusal to the marriage means death by assassin. show more
‘Oh really!’ seems to be Ananna’s response.
She is a thief and a fighter who leaps from one situation to another, that she might later regret.
Throughout the story we are treated to her internal dialogue, liberally sprinkled with her pirate captain father’s advice and memory of her water magic mother’s abilities.
Ananna of course had no magic of her own.
So we have a wealth of situations, interesting characters, camels, deserts, magical islands and oh so much more.
Totally enjoying and now I’m craving the next installment!

A Netgalley ARC show less

Egalley thanks to Strange Chemistry

I'm a bit disappointed with this book, folks. In theory it should be brilliant - a pirate girl and an assassin... But in reality, it's a ragged, overly simplified and very short narration of a story that ended so suddenly I had to verify I had the full version of an ebook. Which I did. Perhaps it's meant for a younger YA audience despite that the main heroine herself is 17?

Ananna refuses to marry a fellow pirate's son, runs away without talking to her parents or friends or anyone, when he proposes, and his family sends an assassin to kill her for the offence. The whole situation from the very beginning is baffling... There is no prevarication, gathering the supplies or pleading her case with her show more parents. She. Just. Runs. For a pirates' daughter she sure acts incredibly stupid.

Naji, the assassin (mysteriously disfigured) has a certain curse on him, which activates when someone saves him, and that someone is Ananna. Now they are both trying to escape people sent to kill her and strange creatures from The Mist that constantly attempt to kill Naji, while our couple is trying to free him from the curse.

Ananna and Naji, they are an odd couple. Ananna doesn't think or analyse much, and we can not get into Naji's head at all. I don't know him. I only know what he does, and it's all just bits and pieces, so I couldn't grasp their characters at all. Naji also acts like a teenage boy incredibly vulnerable about his appearance most of the time although I felt that he should have been older and more mature. He kills people for living. It should provide certain air of soullessness not moping, shouldn't it?

Overall, it felt like I was supposed to like The Assassin's Curse, but I didn't get it. So sorry, guys! I wish you more luck with it than I had. Plenty of people loved it well enough, it just wasn't complex enough or deep enough for my liking. Oh well. show less

Short but sweet. A real pleasure to read, with a heroine that stole my heart and ran away with it. It's not a perfect book - I suspect a better editor could have really bumped it up to the next level - but it's fun and charming and sparkles with personality.

The heroine, Ananna, is quintessentially puckish. She's a firecracker, a rapscallion, a troublemaker, an imp. She's a pirate's daughter, with a pirate's skills - thieving and fighting and trickery, and that's about it. When her parents decide to marry her off to a perfectly nice boy with a ship of his own, Ananna decides she'll have none of it and she takes off. Normally this would irritate me, because it's a thoughtless thing to do. Even if Ananna is scrappy enough to stay alive on show more the streets, she's cutting herself off from the sea and then, to make things worse, the jilted Hariris send an assassin after her.

But Ananna is impulsive and she doesn't care about rules, so even if ditching her fiancé wasn't the smartest thing to do, it was absolutely in character. When the assassin sent to kill her attacks, she ends up saving his life instead (this scene didn't strike me as particularly believable, but I didn't care - I was along for the ride). Turns out that this assassin, Naji, has been cursed to eternally protect the next person to save his life, which is inconvenient for both of them.

Almost from the moment Naji appears on the scene, he and Ananna drop everything to go searching for a cure to this curse. This kind of plot can go awry pretty easily, as it consists almost entirely of batting the characters around like the balls in a pinball machine - go here for the answer, no, go there, no, somewhere else, with the characters rushing around in a way that grows increasingly dissatisfying to moi, the reader.

And I admit, there's a little of that going on here. But I didn't care. I just wanted to spend more time with Ananna and Naji, to see them bicker, to chart their growing trust in one another, to enjoy the world - it's a fun place to explore, with a pirate state and magical islands and a towering Empire somewhere in the distance. Or maybe it's only fun when seen from Ananna's point of view, because she manages to make dirty hotel rooms and cold nights on damp beaches sound entertaining, or at least tolerable. Can you tell I just love this girl? If she were real, I'd invite her out for a drink.

While the book doesn't end on a cliffhanger, neither does it offer a whole lot of closure. THE ASSASSIN'S CURSE is clearly the beginning of a series & I, for one, will be thrilled to read the next installment. show less

Well considering my condition lately, I'd say this book must be pretty special if I was able to read it in two days. Granted it was smallish, only about 270 pages, but the book was small, too, but really it was the story. I loved the characters and when you love the characters, for me, you love the story. You jump right in with both feet into the heart of the trouble, Ananna (hated that I could never figure out how to pronounce her name) is in the middle of being handed over to be married off in a deal between two pirate clans. She's 17 and yeah, the guy is cute, but Ananna is INDEPENDENT! She wants her own ship and this guy is not gonna let her be INDEPENDENT or even independent. So what does Ananna do? What any self respecting pirate show more does, she steals a camel and high tails it out of there!

Of course, that's when the real trouble starts. The Hariri clan, the clan she was supposed to marry into, is pissed off and they send an assassin after her. Some magic happens in unexpected places and all the sudden she and the assassin Naji are bound to each other. Or rather, he's bound to her. The rest of the story is their adventure to find a cure to his "curse".

Now Naji is a bit of an enigma. Sometimes you get a glimpse of the boy he must have been before he became a Jadorr'a, joined the Order. He seems good and as if he might even like Ananna. But then his mask goes back on, figuratively speaking and he's this hardened assassin who practices blood magic and who everyone but Ananna is scared of. But that doesn't mean she's immune to his mercurial moods. As soon as he drops his guard and she sees that kinder side, she warms to him. Then quick as a snake strike, he wounds her with his words again. It's painful sometimes. I hope we get to hear the story from his side in the next book. He is much more refined than Ananna, but he isn't the big hero you'd expect. He has his butt saved many times by Ananna which I loved! He never gets macho about it though and I like that about him.

And then there's Ananna, Ms. Independent. Her language is coarse. She's a pirate, born and raised on a pirate ship. She has a very little of water magic in her being mostly practical, but those are the skills that keep her and Naji alive. She can wield a sword, make a fire, catch and clean fish, find water, and build shelter. Oh and she's the best thief in the Empire! She also can talk her way in or out of just about anything. Except this curse. She is undereducated in comparison to Naji when it comes to University, but she more than compensates for it in practical matters. I love how she saves Naji over and over and takes care of him, but she never thinks the lesser of him for it. I totally love her character!

I think this is a really fantastic debut! These are some of the best characters I've seen in YA fiction this year. Completely flawed yet totally lovable. Strong, guarded, stubborn, independent. All these words could fit both characters. And then the various adventures they go on are icing on the cake. Yes, this is definitely a series. But it's not a cliffhanger ending. Still, I can't wait for the next one to come out. You definitely want to read this one!

I received an ARC of this novel from Strange Chemistry for an honest review. I received no compensations for my review. All opinions in this review are my own. show less

The Assassin's Curse is not your typical young adult fantasy novel. First of all, it's set in a distinctly non-European world and features multiple people of color - no whitewashing! In fact, the white northerners are described as savage barbarians; I'm not sure if this is progress exactly, but at least it's different. The worldbuilding is rich and evocative, though there's still quite a bit of mystery surrounding the Otherworld - a strange, magical, alternate realm.

In addition, The Assassin's Curse stands out because of the relationship between the main characters, Ananna and Naji. In most young adult fantasy novels I've read, the heroine is overflowing with romantic attention. Here, Ananna's unrequited feelings came as an unexpected show more and refreshing surprise. I'm interested to finally read a story where the heroine has to win over the hero instead of vice versa.

But the real reason why I enjoyed The Assassin's Curse so much is Ananna herself. Though she struck me impulsive and irresponsible at first, I soon came to love her confidence and strength of will. Ananna doesn't take any crap, and she ends up rescuing Naji just as many times as he rescues her. I also love that Ananna isn't pretty. In contrast to the thousands of novels written about beautiful people, this story is about a girl who knows she's not beautiful and does whatever the f*** she wants anyway. In contrast to Naji's crippling insecurity about his appearance, Ananna accepts herself just the way she is.

Even so, Ananna still has plenty of flaws. In particular, she unfairly stereotypes beautiful people as stuck-up and spoiled, a viewpoint that is understandable from her perspective and adds layers to her characterization. The problem I have with this is that the stereotype is reinforced in the novel by the evil ex-girlfriend Leila, and Ananna's presumption that all beautiful people are selfish and shallow is totally confirmed. The treatment of beautiful people in the novel is similar to the way racial stereotypes have been reversed; it's effective in helping us recognize the disparities in our own culture, but it's also simplistic. By merely reversing which group of people is looked down on, it feels like an opportunity has been missed to overcome prejudice and confront these issues in a deeper, more meaningful way.

Despite my minor disappointments, I found The Assassin's Curse surprisingly entertaining and different. Even though the plot is mostly spent traveling, it moves along at a decent pace, and the imaginative setting drew me in from the start. But, ultimately, it's the characters that kept me glued to the page. I fell in love with Ananna and can't help rooting for her to succeed. I'm definitely going to pick up The Pirate's Wish to see how the story concludes. show less

In short: With an instantly compelling plot, loveable characters, and a completely engaging romance, The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke is one of the most engrossing books I've read this year.

Assassins seem to be the hot new trend in YA fiction lately, with the popularity of books like Grave Mercy and Throne of Glass, and it's no question why when such an addition brings instant danger and excitement to the reading. So what do you get when you have an assassin book, but then also add pirates and magical curses and an adventurous quest into the mix? Pure AWESOMENESS and one of the most addicting books I've read this year. The Assassin's Curse delivers on the entertainment with an incredibly compelling plot and some completely show more engaging characters.

The standout of The Assassin's Curse for me has got to be the romance between the pirate, Ananna, and the assassin, Naji. And I think that says A LOT because I am by no means a romance fan. In fact, I can't remember the last time I felt so passionately about how a romance played out in a book. But with Ananna and Naji's relationship, I was fully invested. I loved seeing stubborn and head-strong Ananna fall for Naji, adored her attempts to wheedle out the teensiest of smiles out of his stoic and vulnerable demeanour, swooned seeing how protective he was of her, and became ENRAGED seeing the flirty and manipulative Leila mislead and take advantage of Naji. I was OBSESSED with Ananna and Naji's relationship and I can't wait to see it fully take form in the sequel.

The Assassin's Curse opens with Ananna refusing to go along with an arranged marriage that would mean she would never get to be the captain of her own ship and making her getaway on a freaking CAMEL! It was instant love. I absolutely DEVOURED The Assassin's Curse, it was just THAT engrossing. The characters were perfect and the romance was full of tension-ridden goodness. I HIGHLY recommend The Assassin's Curse, releasing October 2, 2012, as it was one of my favourite reads so far this year. The sequel, The Pirate's Wish, is officially one of my most anticipated reads for 2013! show less