#CBR7 Book 21: "Shadow and Bone" by Leigh Bardugo

Page count: 416 pages
Rating: 3 stars

In a fantasy world heavily inspired by Russian folklore elements (which is also reflected in the gorgeous cover design of the books), Alina and Mal are orphans raised on the estate of a benevolent Duke. Growing up, they are inseparable, when they grow up, they (like most others) join the First Army, Alina as a mapmaker, Mal as a tracker. Alina is skinny, pale and insignificant, watching Mal mostly from afar. He's grown up handsome, charming, popular and makes female conquests wherever he goes. Occasionally he'll remember his old friend and come visit her in the camp.

The population of Ravka can be divided into the Grisha, the magically adept, and normal people. The Grisha can possess different power, some creative and some destructive, carefully advertised to the world by the colour of the clothes they wear. None is more powerful than the mysterious and sinister Darkling, the King's right hand, and the only one allowed to wear black. The once prosperous nation has been divided in two by a large, barren area of constant darkness, known as the Fold, or Unsea, the result of a botched spell by one of the former Darklings. Nothing grows there, due to the lack of light. Unfortunately, you can't get from one side of Ravka to the other without crossing it, using sand skiffs powered by wind. Frequently travellers are attacked by the terrifying flying monsters that roam the Fold, entering the Fold is never without peril.  When the part of the army that Alina is with is crossing, there is suddenly an attack, and one of her mapmaker friends is carried off by the flying monsters. Mal is about to get attacked and Alina reacts instinctively. Before she knows what she is doing, she has covered the area in bright light, driving the monsters off and saving everyone. She passes out from the exertion.

When she wakes up, back in camp, Alina is told that she is in fact Grisha, and has a unique magical power. She is a Sun Summoner, and the Darkling has been waiting for her for a very long time. Thanks to her power, the ability to summon and control light, Ravka can possibly finally reclaim the Fold, win the wars with their surrounding countries and regain their prosperity.  Of course, Alina has no idea how to control her power, and can only ever summon the light when either hurt or touching someone who can amplify her power. Told that her unique power make her a target for enemy assassins, she is speedily taken to the capital to undergo training. On the way, she sees the fearsome powers that the Darkling can wield.

While awed by the opulence of her new lodgings in the Palace, Alina is fairly miserable. Most children get raised to Grisha early, taken away from their families to be trained and educated for their future positions serving Ravka. Alina has to learn huge amounts of history and magical theory, as well as undergo physical training. Then there are her magic lessons, where she's completely unable to summon a spark of light without someone with amplifying powers touching her. Having been declared the future saviour of the nation, she feels the pressure to succeed constantly. She makes one friend, Genya, who works for the Queen, able to cosmetically enhance anyone she touches. She shares gossip with Alina and steers her through the worst of the court's intrigue.

After a bit of an emotional breakdown, Alina finally manages to figure out what has been blocking her power and she can start training in earnest. The Darkling is delighted and intends to have a special and powerful amplifier fashioned for her. They just need to locate an elusive and possibly legendary herd of magical deer first, so the horns of the stag can be used. When she's actually able to improve her control in earnest, her trainer, the ancient Baghra strangely starts getting more agitated, not less. She warns Alina that she needs to get away, that the Darkling has dangerous plans and if he succeeds in getting the amplifier for Alina, she'll be under his control forever. So Alina flees the capital, determined to find the stag herself.

The Grisha series has been raved about online for years, and I was waiting for it to be concluded before I started reading. I must admit, the first book showed a promising world, but the characterisation is mainly very simplistic. Alina is nervous, skinny, insecure and spends most of the book pining for Mal. She's also rather naive and completely unprepared for the intrigue at court, never having learned to hide her emotions. Mal is handsome, charming, apparently an amazing tracker and completely oblivious the crush Alina is nursing on him. I'm sorry if you consider this a spoiler, but the character IS called the Darkling. If you are surprised by his sudden but inevitable betrayal, you have clearly not read a lot of books. He's pale and dark-haired, handsome and mysterious. He uses his seductive wiles to turn our heroine's head and blind her to his true motives. That's it, those are pretty much the sum total of their characters traits. There is quite a lot of tell, don't show here and it made me sad, because I wanted to like the book.

The world-building is interesting, with the great big Shadow Fold as a cursed blight in the middle of the kingdom. Again, for anyone who has even a basic grounding in Russian history, it'll come as no surprise that the King and Queen and the aristocracy live in oblivious luxury and opulence while forcing the people to fight their wars for them. The magic of the Grisha is presented as more as a way of manipulating the natural sciences, than varieties of super power, and I liked the ranks and classifications.

As I said, I've heard a lot of good about this trilogy online, enough to make me curious enough to keep reading. I've heard that the series takes a pretty dark turn, and that Alina develops into a more likable characters (she's really quite a helpless drip in this). I'm also hoping that further books will give me some kind of evidence at why I should care one jot about whether Mal lives or dies, he seemed like an insufferable dudebro to me. I'm not very fond of love triangles at the best of times, when the two rivals are an oblivious prettyboy and a sinister magician who embodies a lot of the Old School romance hero tropes, it makes me roll my eyes. Alina needs to woman up, stop mooning about the guys in her life and take control. So yeah, that's my hope for the sequels.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 75: "Grave Mercy" by Robin LaFevers

Page count: 549 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Ismae's mother went to a herb witch to expel her from the womb, but Ismae survived. The poison marked her with red all the way down her side, and proved to the community that she is one of Death's daughters. When her abusive father marries her to the local pig farmer, she is convinced he's going to beat her to death once he discovers her dark secret. But the itinerant priest who performed the service spirits her away with the help of the local herb witch and she ends up at the convent of St. Mortain, who used to be worshipped as the God of Death himself. At the convent, she learns that she has a number of gifts, including a complete immunity to poison and an advanced healing ability. She's offered sanctuary at the convent, if she agrees to be a handmaiden of Death - an assassin working for the old gods of Brittany.

Ismae, who has never known a kind word or touch from anyone in her life, doesn't take long to agree. She is trained in all manner of deadly arts, and by the time she is seventeen, she is ready to complete her training. She isn't too happy with her graduating assignment, though, having to pose as the mistress of Gavriel Duval, half-brother to the Duchess of Brittany and her most trusted advisor. The Abbess of St. Mortain and the Duchess' Grand Chancellor know that there is at least one traitor at court, trying to deliver Brittany and its young Duchess to the French, and they'd like nothing more than for Ismae to prove that Duval is said traitor.

To begin with, Duval and Ismae can barely stand each other. He feels that she trusts too blindly in the orders she receives, she thinks that he is arrogant and conceited and has no wish to be dependent on any man, even as a ruse. Of course the two grow closer, and it becomes readily apparent that Ismae is going to have to learn to trust her instincts and intuition, not just the orders her convent sends her.

A young adult book set in Medieval Brittany, about assassin nuns, with romantic elements, seemed to be right up my alley. I do, after all, have a degree in European Medieaval history, and I love all things YA and romantic. And who doesn't like a good assassin story? There's a lot of potential in this book, but it's too long, and far too much time is spent on things that weren't all that interesting. The story could absolutely have been tighter and more action-packed.

Pretty much all of the training Ismae goes through at the convent is conveniently skipped, and then far too many chapters are spent on her getting settled at court. I have to agree with Duval that she is far too innocent and trusting in her superiors, but that's not really surprising in a farm girl elevated to assassin nun. I doubt any convent is big on training their acolytes in independent thought, critical thinking and questioning their elders. Young women who are sent out to assassinate on behalf of the old gods are not the sort of people you want branching out on their own and going independent. Certainly not if they're immune to poison, like Ismae is. Still, she was a bit dense at times, and it got on my nerves.

The romance springs a bit out of nowhere. Ismae is falling in love with Duval before she's really even spent all that much time with him. As it turns out, he's a pretty great guy, loyal to his young sister and willing to risk his life to make sure she finds happiness in a good marriage and doesn't have her duchy invaded by the French. But Ismae is already madly in love with him by the time we find out all these things.

It was pretty obvious to me who the traitor was long before it was revealed, and the deus ex ending that means Ismae might be looking at her HEA was a bit too convenient for my tastes. Too much of this book was boring day to day court life, and too little of it was assassination, romance and intrigue. Still, I have heard that the sequel is better, so I will probably keep going. After all, medieaval assassin nuns, right?