Poudelivre

I had a very nice spell there for a while were I really liked stories circling around assassins. Not quite sure why though, maybe because those stories (well the ones I’ve come across, anyway) are so different from real life. I had a little pile of them and Grave Mercy was among the lot but I decided to wait a while to read it. Too much of the same things can get boring after a while and I’m glad I waited. It made me appreciate it even more when I finally read it.

In Grave Mercy we meet a young girl named Ismae who is married off to a much older man by her father. But Ismae, who has always been different, was born to do something else and be someone else than a wife in an arranged marriage. She escapes to the safety in the convent of St. Mortain – the saint of death. Once there, Ismae learns that she is one of the daughters of death himself and that she is set out to serve him, something she gladly does. Raised in a world were women mean nothing, and being mistreated by men all her life, Ismae embrace her new life. In the convent, she’s taught how to defend herself, how to kill men with and without blades and how to cook up poisons. She spends years honing her skills and is finally sent out on a real task to serve her dark god. But out in the real world Ismae soon realizes that not everything is as her convent has taught her and sometimes you have to choose your own path.

This story, written by Robin LaFevers, is set out in the 1500^th century and tells the tale of a time when women was nothing more than accessory to men, when you served different gods and when war came on horseback. Writing stories like this is difficult, because it has to be done carefully. You must have a language that fits the time and know historical details, if only in clothing, food and housing. I am pleased to say that LaFevers did an excellent job with all this. The language is different from what I’m used to, not the way you spoke five hundred years ago, but not the way we speak today, either. A nice compromise that really gave a nice touch to the story. A good book is so much more than just a good idea and LaFevers really showed that.

LaFevers novel, so well-crafted, is everything I hoped it would be and more. She has created some amazing and strong characters that carry this wonderful story and the scenery is rich without being too much. It is the story about Ismae and her life, the change for a farmer’s child to the daughter of death and all that she learns on her journey. The book is packed with mystery and suspense, as well as love, friendships and sacrifices. It is a story that indeed has everything, including good and fluid language.

The only negative thing I can say about the novel is that I had a little trouble getting into it at first. I knew right away that this, this was good, but I still couldn’t make that breakthrough, when you just read and read and read without paying attention to anything else. There was always something else that made me put the book down and I can’t say if that’s because of the novel itself or because of the stress of this month. Anyway, it took me some time to finish the book but when I did, I did it in a rush. Maybe that’s why I feel like the end was too short, that too much happened too fast and I didn’t have time to linger over details. Or maybe the end itself was rushed – I don’t know. It was something that disappointed me though, along with not learning more about the characters fates when the novel ended. It was just the first book in the line of few, though told for different characters viewpoint, so maybe I’ll find something there when I read them. Because I will most definitely come back to His fair assassin and Robin LaFevers. It was like taking a trip back in time and books like that are, after all, very hard to find.