Book Review

Grave Mercy

By Hailey Lajoie

The story Grave Mercy takes you on a trip of plots and turns, through the history of inside the dutch kingdom as the french regime is calling for war. Robin Lafever tells a story of betrayal and heart aches. The protagonist, Ismae, is born a servant of Mortain, the god of death.

Hidden in the shadows of her abusive father who sells poor Ismae to another man. This man tries to use her, but sees the scar that runs down her back- her death mark- and is horrified. He sends her away, and where she ends up is the church, the church of Mortain. Here she is introduced in and trains to become an assassin.

Soon she gets her first huge mission, to act as a mistress to Duval, a man she hates, to figure out and protect the royal empire. Here betrayal and lying is daily routine for everyone. The question lies who can Ismae really trust? Can she trust the one she loves?

Even though the plot is creative, and original. The idea of assassins is a common idea but what is done with the story is far from that. Even though this, the fight scenes were lacking in description and excitement. Another one of my complaints would be that the plot is very slow moving, and has a lot of non-essential points to it. The dialogue was realistic though. I could picture the people having these conversations for the year they were in, along with a full picture of every character. Each character was well described with a backstory, and a distinct personality.

The main character, Ismae, is overrated though. I hate her character and it is as if the other characters have more development then her. In the beginning of the book she describes herself as cold hearted with a soft side, and by the end of the book it is like someone else is writing it. This book would be much better written in third person instead of a first person.

Even though this book has a great plot, the writing structure outweighs it. I would not suggest this book to dear readers. I have not read any other of Robin Lafevers book, so I do not say he is a poor writer, but it just did not fit what I like to read.