Review: The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke

I am sorry that this review is late. If you saw my post on facebook and twitter you will know that the reason why this wasn't posted on Tuesday was because I graduated on Tuesday and I was a little busier than I expected I would be. This review was meant to go up last night but the power went out so I had no internet to put it up.  

Synopsis (from Goodreads)

Ananna of the Tanarau abandons ship when her parents try to marry her off to an allying pirate clan: she wants to captain her own boat, not serve as second-in-command to her handsome yet clueless fiance. But her escape has dire consequences when she learns the scorned clan has sent an assassin after her. 

And when the assassin, Naji, finally catches up with her, things get even worse. Ananna inadvertently triggers a nasty curse — with a life-altering result. Now Ananna and Naji are forced to become uneasy allies as they work together to break the curse and return their lives back to normal. Or at least as normal as the lives of a pirate and an assassin can be.

 This was such an enjoyable read. It was fast paced and action-filled, with really interesting settings and characters. I loved the combination of pirates and assassins for a great story with plenty of twists and turns.

I really enjoyed the characters that Cassandra Rose Clarke created, particularly Ananna and Naji. Ananna was such a feisty, fierce character. She knew how to handle herself in a fight and she certainly wasn’t a whiny character. She was very stubborn, which annoyed some other characters (I am looking at you, Naji), but added to the plot. Naji started of just how I imagined an assassin being, but as you got to know him better he softened a little and let us see his humanity. It was interesting to watch his character develop. I loved that the two main characters weren’t the most moral heroes/heroines. Ananna was a thief and Naji was a murderer and it made for some interesting reading.

I also particularly liked the relationships of the different characters. I loved Ananna and Naji’s reluctant friendship. It was a friendship that started out of necessity, and grew from there. The development of the friendship was slow and realistic. I also liked the different relationships that Ananna had with her parents, which we saw through flashbacks. Even though she had the right to hate them, she didn’t and it was nice to see the reasons why.

The plot was great. Each time you thought that something was going to happen, everything changed and it didn’t. The times when I was sure that Ananna and Naji were going to find an answer to their problem they would hit a roadblock. I particularly liked the little twist that occurred on the ocean and in the desert.

The writing style was certainly interesting. It was first person through Ananna, and as Ananna had a pirate’s education more often than not the English wasn’t correct. It did take a little bit to get used to at the start and it stopped me from getting immersed into the story but once I had gotten used to it I felt that it worked really well.

This was a really good book and I am looking forward to reading the second book! I give The Assassin’s Curse 4.5/5 stars!

I read this book for the Take Control March and the 2013 TBR pile reading challenges.

Mel.

Up next: Seven on Saturday - Books on top of my TBR pile.