Assassin's Apprentice

How it reads

Assassin's Apprentice is fantasy (epic fantasy, specifically), and its dominant mood is hopeful. Whatever it puts its people through, it believes things can get better. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.

It's set in an invented world, in no single period, told in the third person, staying close to one character. Its central concerns are identity and coming of age. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.

It opens a series. The ending resolves happily. At 460 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.