Grave Mercy

His Fair Assassin, Book 1

By: Robin LaFevers

Narrated by: Erin Moon

Robin LaFevers has enchanted young readers with her Nathaniel Fludd: Beastologist and Theodosia series, which earned starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly. In Grave Mercy, LaFevers crafts a fantastical tale sure to win her a new fan base among young adults.

Escaping an arranged marriage, 17-year-old Ismae finds sanctuary in the St. Mortain convent, where the sisters worship the gods of old. There, Ismae learns that the God of Death has special plans for her—a destiny that will one day compel her to betray the man she loves.

©2012 Robin LaFevers (P)2012 Recorded Books, LLC

Lots of Potential

This book has so much potential to be totally awesome: a convent of assassin nuns, political intrigue, some romance for those who enjoy that sort of thing, and a badass protagonist. Let's tackle these claims point-by-point, shall we?
- First, the education in assassination is skipped over completely by a three-year time jump from when Ismae arrives at the convent to when she is sent out on her first mission. It would have been really cool to get a glimpse of the education in the convent, Harry Potter style: worked in between chunks of character and plot development. And for a book about assassin nuns, there weren't enough assassinations in this book.
- For all the hype about political intrigue, it wasn't all that intriguing. Maybe I'm just blessed with the powers of 'whodunnit,' but the traitor was painfully obvious from the get-go so there wasn't much in the way of surprise there, either.
- The romance was so cliche that it hurt to read about it. Since I listened to this on audio, I found myself turning to the radio when the romance cliches came in. What is it about a guy radiating heat that makes him sexy? We're told multiple times that Ismae feels the heat of Duvall's body when she's not touching him. Also, the whole 'girl meets boy and they detest each other until they realize they're in love' thing has been done to death. And, there really wasn't anything about Duvall that was particularly sexy or interesting; he's just the main guy in her life so he has to be the love interest.
- Ismae is no badass. Sure, she's trained in weapons and poisons (or so we're told; see above), but she's more of a sit-around-and-wait kind of girl. Other than one time that she takes the initiative to follow Duvall to the castle, she doesn't really make any of her own decisions or do her own investigating. For the most part, she just waits around and life and this supposed intrigue just happen to her. In fact, for two major events in the book, she is only on hand because she was warned by Sibella, another assassin on assignment. Now, maybe Ismae's lack of action is because there is a lot of focus in this book on the will of the gods and her passivity is intended to throw light on this and illustrate the few choices that are open to her, but I don't really like protagonists that aren't agents of their own destiny. To be fair, Ismae takes much more of an active role at the end of the book so I haven't completely ruled out reading the second book in this series when it's out, but I think I'd enjoy it more if it were from Sibella's point of view.

I don't want to leave the impression that the book was all bad. It wasn't. After all I did give it 3 stars. The semi-accurate history was a plus, Beast was a pretty fun character for the scenes when he was around. Learning a bit about the old Breton gods was cool. I'm sure I can come up with more...

All in all, I might read the second one, but it's nowhere near the top of my to-read pile

One of the best books this year!

What did you love best about Grave Mercy?

The book's got a great romance that develops over time and it's not the typical YA insta-love. The setting is brilliantly brought to life and the hero and heroine ones you can truly root for! the concept itself is magnificent and it got me hook from the very first sentence. It never let go!

What other book might you compare Grave Mercy to and why?

Kristin Cashore's Graceling, Fire and Bitterblue.

Which scene was your favorite?

There's a scene towards the end where I though all was lost... It had me gasping and clawing and hoping for a happy ending.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

ABSOLUTELY!

What a ride!!!

I loved this trilogy. I was hooked by page three and couldn’t put it down. Well, there were several times I had to put it down for awhile. I was too excited and needed to calm down. Great read!!!

Feircely feminist in all the best ways

The main character is far from a damsel in distress. She saves the lives of those she loves time and time again, even the men in her life. She is a total badass.

Disappointed

Another good story ruined by an unnecessary love affair. I loved the drama of the main story, but the romantic scene took away from that.

Another Fave Audio!

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

For sure!

Any additional comments?

This book is phenomenal! The moment I started reading Grave Mercy I knew that it was a lot different than anything I’ve ever read before. It’s set in a different time era (more than a few hundred years ago) and it starts out with a really horrible scene. In fact, the scene was so horrible and I felt so bad for the main character (Ismae) after that opening scene, that when Ismae is then taken to a sanctuary and discovers that she will become a trained assassin, I was absolutely thrilled! Isn’t that weird? That I should be happy that a character will be killing people? And thrilled that the character is the daughter of Death Himself?

I absolutely adored Ismae. She’s a very well developed character, and I loved every moment when she’d excitedly start looking for the first sign that would tell her when and who she could kill next. I actually caught myself giggling a couple times over these moments. And she is one kick butt heroine! There were quite a few characters that I also grew to care for or admire later on, but I don’t want to talk about them to avoid spoilers.

The romance in this book was very well developed. And I think it was developed in a way that is just right for Ismae because of all the horrible experiences she’s had with men in the past. And the way the romance was intertwined throughout the story was just the perfect touch.

I do want to touch on the writing in this book! Robin LaFevers writes beautifully! The whole story flowed very well, and I was easily sucked into the world Robin created in Grave Mercy.

The way the story ended was fabulously done and the whole book (and ending) have me craving for more. But I’m even more thrilled that we will be getting the story of a girl-character named Sybella in the sequel Dark Triumph. She was only briefly introduced in Grave Mercy and each moment she pops up in the story is so brief that I’m craving to know what the heck she’s up to.

Overall Good Listen

What made the experience of listening to Grave Mercy the most enjoyable?

This is not the normal type of book that I go for but I was looking for something different. I loved the way the author spins the story and look forward to other books by them.

What did you like best about this story?

I loved the aspect of 'death' having many meanings. I loved the character development through the book and look forward to reading more.

Did Erin Moon do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

I did not enjoy the way Erin read male characters. It was actually a bit hard to overcome in the beginning. If the storyline wasn't so additive I may have moved on to another book.

Slow Start but Pleasant Read

I enjoyed this young-adult historical fantasy read, perfumed with romance - my kind of novel. The beginning of the story is slow, but the interesting twist of the plot is intriguing enough to keep me listening on .... with 1.5x narration speed, and jumping forward a few times. I find the writing is better suited for reading, not so much for audio. The performance was great and easy to follow. I may read the next book in the series, instead of listening.

enjoyable

It was slow going the first few chapters but I soon started to really enjoy the story.
The narrator did pretty well, she has a monotone voice that can be a little hard get in the rhythm with.
over all it was very good.

Still As Good As the First Time I Read It

I forgot how much I loved this book! I love this book a lot! So good!