Review: Age of Assassins

Age of Assassins
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy! 
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

To catch an assassin, use an assassin...

Girton Club-foot, apprentice to the land's best assassin, still has much to learn about the art of taking lives. But his latest mission tasks him and his master with a far more difficult challenge: to save a life. Someone, or many someones, is trying to kill the heir to the throne, and it is up to Girton and his master to uncover the traitor and prevent the prince's murder. 

In a kingdom on the brink of civil war and a castle thick with lies Girton finds friends he never expected, responsibilities he never wanted, and a conspiracy that could destroy an entire kingdom.

Okay so, the Assassin's Creed vibes I got from the cover, and the whole "To catch an assassin, use an assassin" made this a need to read book. Not a want....need. I still wasn't entirely sure what to expect from it, but I was actually blown away by it! 

Age of Assassins has a brilliant opening that swallows you in to the story, enveloping you in the atmosphere and setting. Girton makes for such an interesting narrative and main character and we get him narrating the whole story from the future, he's recounting his past, but inside that narrative we have the current goings on and then how he came to be with his Master. The glimpses in to his past where an interesting look in to how he's grown and changed as a character as well as how he grew up. We see all the adversity he's overcome but he's just a boy and still has some growing up to do which we see in book as he interacts with other boys and so on. His narrative when he fights was interestingly written too. 

I'm so curious about Girton's Master though! We get some hints of her past, and she's an interesting character, so the hint wasn't enough! I'm hoping we get to find out more about her in the second book! As for the other characters....well they're a mixed bunch. Aydor is hands down the nastiest character I've come across in a while. Genuinely. I hated him with a passion. I want him dead, Game of Thrones style. Rufra, it took me a while to warm up too, my opinion of him changed largely as Girton's did. I was initially suspicious of him, he seemed so shady, but I ended up loving him by the end! 

Age of Assassins has so much intrigue and plotting I was loving it! It has a nice, steady pace that builds towards the finale when things really pick up speed, as everything's revealed and the castle falls in to chaos! I spent ages trying to put everything together and figure it all out and I failed epically. I only managed to figure out a couple of things, so I was blown away by the reveals and when it all came together I had one of those "OOOOHHHHHH" moments! 

As for the ending? It was brilliant. The last line of the epilogue leaves you with a shiver of excitement for what's to come and I'm so excited for the next book to get back to the characters, the writing and the excellent plotting! Not to mention hopefully getting some more hints about Master's past!