I Needed to Win.

They Needed to Die.

Sallot Leon is a thief, and a good one at that. But gender fluid Sal wants nothing more than to escape the drudgery of life as a highway robber and get closer to the upper-class—and the nobles who destroyed their home.

When Sal steals a flyer for an audition to become a member of The Left Hand—the Queen’s personal assassins, named after the rings she wears—Sal jumps at the chance to infiltrate the court and get revenge.

But the audition is a fight to the death filled with clever circus acrobats, lethal apothecaries, and vicious ex-soldiers. A childhood as a common criminal hardly prepared Sal for the trials. And as Sal succeeds in the competition, and wins the heart of Elise, an intriguing scribe at court, they start to dream of a new life and a different future, but one that Sal can have only if they survive.

Oh, what a disappointing read this turned out to be. I expected more from this fantasy, but what I received was a generic, almost non-existent world, extremely flat secondary characters, to a point where it was difficult to just differentiate them, and loads of plot holes. The main character themself—is that a word? I need it to be a word but there's a red squiggly line underneath it—hardly made sense to me.

Before I continue, I should make it extra clear that I didn't finish this. I couldn't. I didn't care about what was going on in the book. I didn't care about what was going to happen. The characters, who I needed to rely on to pique my interest, failed me time and time again.

Little ways into the book, after Sal enters the competition to be the next Opal, every competitor is given a number. And that number limits how well you get to know these characters, even though many of them will be dispensable in the future. There isn't much else given about them other than what Sal is able to point out. No one else really mattered in the long run, so they all ended up being flat and boring secondary characters. 

Going off this, the competition itself seems like a carbon copy of the Hunger Games. Competitors are killing each other left and right without any real consequence. The only real difference is that they're being "trained" to become proficient killers. Other than that, there's no real build up to it. There's no sense of urgency or danger to keep readers on the edge of their seats. 

There's not much said about the setting. I read up to nearly half the book and all I was able to tell was that: they were in a castle. They had some training grounds. There are random tid-bits about magic and wars and shadows, but not enough for readers to really grasp anything. I don't care that most of the book is about some random competition—it doesn't excuse lack of world building. It feels like lazy writing.

I felt so utterly disconnected to Sal. While the representation of a gender fluid character is great, especially in a fantasy, it didn't do much of anything to make them seem anything more than a name on page. I can't tell you a single detail about them because there was no spark, no interest behind them for me. They didn't stand out in any way.

The pacing was also weird, but I think this chalks up to poor writing again. Having a general timeline of the book—from what I read--was messy... not complicated but confusing. It felt off-kilter and that didn't really do any good for the book itself.

Overall, I wasn't impressed with the portion I'd read and I know I won't be impressed with whatever is left. Predictable and boring, I'm giving this 1.5 stars.

•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•

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{ about the author }

A wayward biology student from Arkansas, Linsey has previously worked as a crime lab intern, neuroscience lab assistant, and pharmacy technician. She is currently an MFA candidate represented by Rachel Brooks of Bookends Literary. Her debut novel MASK OF SHADOWS is the first in a fantasy duology coming in August 2017 from Sourcebooks Fire. She can be found writing about science and magic anywhere there is coffee.

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