Grave Mercy

Author: Robin LaFevers
Goodreads Rating: 3.97
Pages: 549
Format: Finished Copy from ARCycle

Why be the sheep, when you can be the wolf?
Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others.
Ismae’s most important assignment takes her straight into the high court of Brittany—where she finds herself woefully under prepared—not only for the deadly games of intrigue and treason, but for the impossible choices she must make. For how can she deliver Death’s vengeance upon a target who, against her will, has stolen her heart?

Holy Cow. Hooooooolly Cow. I’m just floored by how much I adored this book, and now I’m wondering what took me so long to get to it? I mean, I do know, I got it from Arcycle a few months ago, but I was trying to read all of my upcoming releases first, and now that I have finished all 2013 releases, now I get to dive into all these other books that have been calling my name for way too long. Now? Now I get to ask myself why I waited so long to read this amazing book. I know one of the biggest drawbacks is the size, but man was it worth reading.

For starters, I loved how this was like a historical fiction with some magic wrapped into it. There is nothing like taking the past and adding something to make it lively because, as a historian, the past can be boring and so can historical fictions that just don’t understand how the past really happened. I think I would actually liken this to a sort of Game of Thrones lite. Sure there are no dragons or things like that, but there is that element that this could have been the past if not for the crazy mysticism. 

I adored the characters almost right away. Of course there was some getting used to what the hell was going on and adjusting to who all these people were. Its hard to deny that when you have such a complicated plot and so many different character. That was my biggest problem I think that there were a few characters that I couldn't keep straight, namely the high lords that were all kinds of wrapped up in the plot.

I adored Ismae and her strength in the face of everything that could go wrong that did. I really enjoyed her getting to know Duval and how even though she was sort of told not to trust men, she clearly trusted her gut which was much more important. The ending of this book was the icing on the cake and left me wanting to return to this world. Finding out that we were going to get another book left me delighted abet, slightly disappointed that it was not about Ismae.

I am excited to see what the next book is going to bring and to see exactly how many more installments of this book we are going to get. I have admitted on several occasions that I am not a huge fantasy fan, I am really enraptured by this book and this series.

The Court's Decision: