Blood of Assassins by R.J. Barker – Review

Published: February 13, 2018

Publisher: Orbit Books

Genre: Fantasy

Series: The Wounded Kingdom #2

Pages: 480 (Paperback)

My Rating: 4.5/5.0

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:

THE KING IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE KING . . .

The assassin Girton Club-foot and his master have returned to Maniyadoc in hope of finding sanctuary, but death, as always, dogs Girton’s heels. The place he knew no longer exists.

War rages across Maniyadoc, with three kings claiming the same crown – and one of them is Girton’s old friend Rufra. Girton finds himself hurrying to uncover a plot to murder Rufra on what should be the day of the king’s greatest victory. But while Girton deals with threats inside and outside Rufra’s war encampment, he can’t help wondering if his greatest enemy hides beneath his own skin.

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Blood of Assassins is one of those rare books that impresses me more than itss predecessor. I tend to judge sequels more harshly because I always want them to exceed my imaginings, but so often they fall flat, or just a little short of the previous book’s impact. Not so with this book. I am now totally enamored with this series!

I’m not sure why, but Age of Assassins was just good – not awesome, and the characters felt like schoolyard bullies most of the time. The book improved as it went along and I liked it well enough to want to continue with the series, so here we are. This sequel was, to put it simply, awesome. Sure, I’ve got a few things that I thought were kind of annoying, but overall my impression of this book was much more positive than the first, ensuring that I will most definitely read the final book.

This time around, Girton is returning to Maniyadoc after a five-year hiatus. He and Merela decided to skip town because the assassin’s guild was after them and even though they themselves are skilled assassins, they wouldn’t have stood a chance. It would have been like John Wick 2, though perhaps with fewer deaths and certainly none by pencil. There is a war of kings – Rufra, Aydor, and Tomas are all vying for control of the kingdom and Girton’s obviously going to try to keep his best friend alive and make sure he comes out on top. In addition to preventing assassination, Girton must also try to keep his poisoned master alive, solve a murder, find a spy, and possibly help Rufra to win a war, all while he tries to keep his greatest secret hidden.

On to some of my issues that prevented this book from being a five star read… First and foremost, Girton seems to have not matured at all in his five years spent traveling with his master. He routinely makes very childish choices, shows juvenile rage, and is a giant idiot on several occasions. While his peers have matured – become leaders of men, gotten married, had children, etc. Girton has seemingly remained fixated on his lost teenage love and thus stagnated at that age mentally. My other issue was the use of the dream sequences. Clearly this is Girton struggling with his internal conflict and his magic, but they do tend to disrupt the story. It was like all of a sudden I wasn’t reading the same book and while they lent perspective to Girton’s inner struggle with his power, I feel like the “voice” of the magic would have sufficed. Also, is anyone else with me in wanting to know more about the hedgings? Are they just a superstition of the populace, or do they really exist?

Overall, this book was really great – from the dialogue, to the subplots, to the action sequences. I liked this so much more than the first book and I really think it’s because the characters have aged up and have stopped trying to be simple bullies, but have escalated things to war. Which, let’s be honest, is much more interesting to read about. I think Rufra and Aydor both had excellent character growth and the newly introduced characters were equally interesting. If you had lukewarm feelings about Age of Assassins, I would encourage you to give this book a try – you may have the same experience that I had! I’m tremendously excited for King of Assassins to release in August – yay for short waiting periods!