Grave Mercy

Here's a good young adult read that just came out this month. You may have already noticed the cover in bookstores: a girl in a heavy, medieval-looking red dress. It's perhaps not a very original cover, but that dress is certainly eye-catching all the same. And once you pick up the book and read the back cover, you will definitely be intrigued.

In Grave Mercy, by Robin LaFevers, Ismae is convent-trained to be an assassin (you read that right) for her god (and father, no less), Death (it just gets weirder and weirder, doesn't it?). In this medieval world similar to ours with a political backdrop that could almost have come right out of history, the handmaidens of Death are sworn to protect the interests of their country, Brittany. Ismae has no reason to love men, having only ever been abused by them, first by her father, then by the man she was forced to marry at only 14. When her turn comes to leave the convent on a mission to protect the young Duchess and see her to the throne, she is well-prepared to take her revenge on mankind, all according to the will and plan of Death, of course. But teaming up with a nobleman named Duval complicates things. The convent wants her to spy on him, and Ismae would rather cut his throat than trust him. If only she could find an ounce of disloyalty in him, she would get the job done and return home to her sisters. But soon, Ismae finds her heart and her duty and her country embroiled in one gigantic mess.

This book was fascinating, yet I had a hard time wrapping my head around the genre. It appears historical but doesn't seem to be trying to recreate any particular historical moment (aside from France being at war with Brittany). It has elements of fantasy: Ismae's father is a god, and she has certain supernatural gifts, like the ability to see Death's marque on her victims or her immunity to poisons. The trappings of medieval religion are there, but the religion itself is all mixed up with a variety of "saints," who are known as gods to true believers, and elements of Christianity. To a Christian like me it ends up feeling very pagan, but because I see it as fantasy, I'm able to put that aside for the most part and enjoy the book. Nonetheless, it's odd.

(This paragraph contains SPOILERS.) The whole weird religious and questionable moral tone of the book drop what might have been five stars down to three and a half, maybe four, so you see that my opinion of the book is still high. There are the unfortunate morality issues. The convent assassins are trained to do whatever it takes to get in close to their victims, including becoming mistresses, if time is needed to discover if a person truly deserves assassination. Ismae, herself, is supposed to act as a mistress, and she ends up sleeping with someone near the end of the book. Yes, she falls in love with him, and I guess our society thinks that makes it okay. And our society's morals aside, that time period was rather bawdy. Think of King Henry and his six wives. Fortunately, this is no The Other Boleyn Girl, and for what's there, it's kept very clean. Still, I will never say it's all good and well when it comes to extra-marital sex. It's just not right.

But if you can ignore the messy religious juxtapositions and mostly just the morals at the end of the book, what you are left with is a solid story full of mystery, danger, political intrigue, subtle but passionate romance, historical detail, and colorful fantasy. Ismae seems like a simple girl to begin with, but she grows up and grows on you. I feel like Grave Mercy is a novel targeted to young adults because it has to be (the heroine is 17) but written for an audience that's a bit older. So, if you are an adult (particularly female) who loves young adult fiction, this book is just right for you!

Grave Mercy is Book 1 of the His Fair Assassin series. Its sequel, out in the spring of 2013, will be about one of Ismae's convent sisters.

The Girl of Fire and Thorns

I want to say I was not impressed by the cover of this book, but I was. The title was interesting on its own: The Girl of Fire and Thorns, but oddly, by the time I finished the book, I really had to think about where they got those images, Fire and Thorns, and I didn't find them very apropos to the heroine. The book itself had the most non-telling picture of a beautiful girl on the front (so many young adult books do these days), and the back cover copy contained the most vague description that I've read in a long time. When I started, I had no idea what sort of book I was about to read, other than that the heroine was a princess on the path to fulfill her destiny. The cover copy gushed about the contents with unrevealing keywords specifically used to draw an audience in, and it compared the book to Kristin Cashore's Graceling, which I enjoyed awhile back. The letter from the editor, accompanying this advance reader's copy, was just as vague and gushed just as much as the book cover. I can't say I think it's a good cover, but it worked on me. And...I'm glad it did. Fortunately, the cover I have does not match the one pictured here. It looks like someone else knew the cover needed a make-over, too.

This book is Rae Carson's debut novel and the first in a trilogy that, I will tell you right now, I plan to buy if the other books don't show up in the advance reader's copies. I will be a better promoter of this book, however, than the cover I have was for me and tell you exactly what it's about (without giving away any spoilers, of course).

Right away within the first few pages, you discover that Elisa is a 16-year-old princess from a religious, almost Hispanic (if it weren't fantasy) kingdom, who eats too much; bears a unique, God-given jewel in her navel as a symbol that she's been chosen for an important destiny; and is about to marry the desert king of a similar culture on the verge of war. Her only appeal, besides the stone in her belly, is her quick,  learned mind. She knows all about war, in her head at least, which is good because she is quickly tested.

The story really picks up from the beginning and moves. I would compare Rae Carson to Maria V. Snyder in that Carson is always moving the story somewhere across the desert, keeping the pace strong and the plot exciting. (I happen to love Snyder's Poison Study and Glass series for their intense action and plot movement.) Carson perhaps doesn't take her story quite as far, or push the plot quite as quickly with as many competing elements, as Snyder might, but it was one of those books that I hardly wanted to put down. When I found Snyder, I was hooked, and Carson has the potential to do that to me, too.

In addition to its forward momentum, The Girl of Fire and Thorns is lovely to read, no awkward sentences, just enough elegant description. It has a very Hispanic flair, though it takes place in a fantasy world of magic. The fantasy element is very light and appears mostly in discussions of plants and in the powers the evil animagi use in battle. It's implied that the Godstone, as Elisa's jewel is called, is magical, but that doesn't come into play for most of the book.

It should be noted that this is not Christian fiction. I have no idea what the author's religious beliefs are. The religion is only partly similar to Christianity and Catholicism. There is a ceremony not entirely unlike Communion, where participants are pricked by the thorns of a rose (hence, the title, I guess), and the perfect number is five, instead of seven.

I enjoyed Elisa. She's not very attractive a character at first, eating just to console herself sometimes. She's certainly an unlikely heroine for a young adult novel, an overweight teenager who feels herself unworthy of everything. But because of the time lapse of the book, she undergoes realistic change and growth. I loved her by the end.

Another intriguing facet of the book is that Elisa ends up getting married at its beginning. She's not just promised. The author actually goes through with it, which I think most authors wouldn't do. I like it. It adds another layer of complexity, marriage to a stranger at a young age. I don't want to spoil too much here, but let me just say they don't consummate the marriage then and there, and I'll leave it at that. There is a bit of romance later in the novel, but I'm being vague on purpose here. Don't assume anything. The book is not crafted to be a romance, and if you hang your hopes on romance, they will be dashed. Still, the romance that is there is beautiful and, for the most part, satisfying. There is something I can't reveal about the end here that may make readers feel like they were cheated a bit. But that would definitely be a spoiler, and I hate to give spoilers on books I think people might actually read.

I found this novel to be completely appropriate for its target age group, with some war-related violence, but the themes are not too adult. The heroine grows past her age group, perhaps, out of necessity, but I don't think that's bad for a young adult novel.

I wasn't sure, at first, how I would feel about the Hispanic aspect of this book. I'm not trying to be racist, but typically, young adult heroines, especially in fantasy, are white and might as well have British accents. Okay, now I am stereotyping. But the borderline Hispanic language (readable if you know Spanish) and the coloring of the people offered a unique touch to the atmosphere of this book, I thought. It made me wonder if Rae Carson is Hispanic, which, again, is stereotyping. It's just so unusual of a setting twist, particularly for fantasy. (Maybe I just don't read the right books.) In fact, one evil animagus encountered in the book has white hair and blue eyes that make Elisa question how he can even see, which I found humorous.

Aside from the cover, which simply did the book no justice (but the picture of which has been changed, at least), The Girl of Fire and Thorns is a rare find, and I'm sad only that I'll have to wait so long to read the next two books of the trilogy.

This book is available in September.