Assassin's Heart by Sarah Ahiers is the first book in the Assassin' Heart series and follows the story of a girl who is can legally murder people in her country. But when her own family gets murdered, all she wants is vengeance.

 Keep reading for a full book review!

About the book.

My thoughts. 

SUMMARY

Lea Saldana is a trained assassin who was born into one of the nine clipper Families who lawfully take lives for a lives.

As a member of the highest-ranking clans, loyalty to the Family is above all but that doesn’t stop Lea from getting into a secret relationship with Val, a member from a rival clipper Family.

She has fallen in love with him against her better judgement but then one night she wakes to find her house has been burned down and her family killed. She realises Val and his Family are the only ones that could have done this.

Devastated by his betrayal, she leaves in the hopes to find her long lost uncle who she believes can help her get revenge for her family.

WRITING

Eh…the writing of this wasn’t amazing if I’m being honest. It was quite dry at some portions and the action was too slow. The writing didn’t really engage and enamour me as I had hoped. There were parts where I was not at all interested in continuing on.

However, there are some fairly decently paced passages where the action really picks up and gets full on. But the inconsistency quite frustrating.

IDEA

The idea is my favourite part of this book! I loved how richly imagined and unique the story was! I have never ever read a book where killing has been lawful and the way Ahiers went about the idea was quite cool. The book is actually quite spiritual as it revolves around goddesses, angry ghosts and faith, which I was really not expecting!

I loved the world-building of this book! I could really imagine the different aspects and places the characters travelled to and would have really loved if this book had included a map at the start! 

I also loved the religious and political aspects of the book, which you don't see very often in young adult books and I loved how there were these gods and goddesses and how these different families fought for power and control and respect. 

I also liked how the idea of the assassin wasn’t the convention one because whenever I think of assassin I think of someone like Celaena from Throne Of Glass by Sarah J Maas and this book really added more depth to the idea of assassin’s in my head.

PLOT

As I mentioned before, the story was quite slow – the beginning especially. I had gone into it really excited and expectant because the back sounded absolutely fantastic however, I was quite let down, which sucks.

The story isn’t terrible but the inconsistency of the pace makes the book really difficult to get into. But when I hit the middle, the book really picked up its pace which made it more enjoyable.

The book was also extremely repetitive in terms of its action. For example:

There were times where I was like ‘what???’ because it was quite illogical seeing how the action kept repeating itself and made some parts quite dull.

But on a more positive note, there are some pretty awesome scenes in the book AS WELL where I absolutely couldn’t put it down!

CHARACTERS

Lea is the first character I’m going to be talking about who is the main character. She was an okay character but I felt she didn’t have enough depth to her if I’m being honest. She didn’t bounce off the pages for me.

Val is not someone who is in the book too much and I liked him originally but I’m really not sure how I feel about him.

My favourite from the book is probably Les! He was so much fun and such a sweet and lovely person. He really brightened up the book and although even he could have been done better, he wasn’t terrible! I found he also didn’t really leap off the pages for me but it was better than how I felt about the other characters.

FINALLY…

I really did want to like this book but unfortunately, I didn’t very much. The pace was extremely inconsistent and the characters didn’t really make me love them. The plot got repetitive and the only thing I really liked was the idea.

However, if this book sounds intriguing to you, read it! I’m not saying you shouldn’t read but I’m just saying I didn’t like it too much, unfortunately. 

What is one of your favourite books? 

Let me know in the comments below!