Royal Assassin

How it reads

Royal Assassin is fantasy (epic fantasy, specifically), and its dominant mood is tense. The suspense is the kind you feel in your shoulders. 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 across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are power and politics and secrets. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.

It's a later book in a series — you'll usually want to start earlier. The ending is bittersweet: it resolves, but at a price. At 675 pages it's a real commitment. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.