Shawn happens to be a Twitter friend of mine (@stwick) but
don’t think that’s influenced my review. I wouldn’t say if it wasn’t the truth,
and those of you who know me well know just how true that particular statement
is – some of you to your regret. I don’t regularly review books, but I think I
have pretty high standards. The Penitent Assassin is better than the
latest Terry Goodkind book (The Omen Machine) and it runs rings around Sara
Douglass’s last series (Darkglass Mountain).
Technically classified as dark fantasy, in my opinion it
still counts as high fantasy. It ticks all the boxes, including a confrontation
between good and evil. Looks like high fantasy to me – multiple books optional!
So if you’re a lover of fantasy of any kind, you should definitely check this
out.
The Penitent Assassin is dark and gritty and will
take you on a rollercoaster ride through a vivid yet fantastical world of
crime, drug-addiction and evil powers. This is a book that will take you by the
scruff of the neck and shake you, and you don’t get to walk away until it’s
finished with you. Around every corner lurks a new surprise.
If you’re interested, don’t read the blurb. It contains a
spoiler. I hadn’t read it until I was halfway through the book, and two lines
into the blurb, I stopped. I knew immediately I didn’t want to finish reading
the blurb because I could see it was about to ruin the maelstrom of tension and
conflict building. Suffice to say, Mallor wants a magical artefact, the
Armillae, for multiple reasons, some of which become apparent over the course
of the book. It seems like everyone else wants it, too. We don’t know who is
for Mallor, and who is against, and the wondering will keep you turning the
page.
Be warned; nothing is as it seems! Really, nothing. I’m not joking. The
whole book takes place over a very short period of time – I forget exactly, a
few days I think, definitely no more than a week – and the pace of the book is
commensurate with so much action being crammed into such a short period of
time.
I am not much of an indie author fan. Not because I think
indie authors can’t be good, but because self-publishing provides an avenue for
people who think writing is nothing more than putting pen to page, who know
nothing about the craft of writing, to publish absolute crap. And those people
clog the market and make it hard to find the proverbial needle in a haystack,
because the needles are very few and far between, and the haystack is
unbelievably huge. In fact, last year there were around 3,000,000 books published and a great many of them were self-published.
The Penitent Assassin is one of those needles you want to find. It’s
solidly written and shows a dedication to the writing craft on the part of the
author. If you take pleasure in not just an exciting and interesting storyline,
but also a well-crafted book, this is a novel for you.
I give The Penitent Assassin nine out of ten. Just so
you know, I don’t use a five star scale because I just don’t believe there is
enough scope in it to do justice to every book. It costs $2.99 (a bargain by
any measure) and you can find it here.
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or Somebody Has To Say It, I'd be eternally grateful if you'd be so good
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