The Assassin's Curse Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
Ananna of the Tanarau abandons ship when her parents try to marry her off to an allying pirate clan: she wants to captain her own boat, not serve as second-in-command to her handsome yet clueless fiance. But her escape has dire consequences when she learns the scorned clan has sent an assassin after her. And when the assassin, Naji, finally catches up with her, things get even worse. Ananna inadvertently triggers a nasty curse — with a life-altering result. Now Ananna and Naji are forced to become uneasy allies as they work together to break the curse and return their lives back to normal. Or at least as normal as the lives of a pirate and an assassin can be.
Paperback: 298 pages
Publisher: Strange Chemistry (2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9781908844019
ISBN-13: 978-1908844019
ASIN: 1908844019
Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 7.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (118 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #215,935 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #32 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > Pirates #610 in Books > Teens > Romance > Fantasy #1146 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > Fantasy
The Assassin's Curse is a romantic fantasy staring a hot-headed teenage run-away bride who is pursued by supernatural villains as she falls for a dark and dangerous stranger. A more detailed synopsis of the plot would make the story sound promising, and would likely have sounded great as pitch to a publisher. Unfortunately the execution by debut novelist Cassandra Rose Clarke is sloppy and unconvincing. Her characters lack character, her details lack detail, and the story lacks an ending. It isn't so much a novel as it is a prologue for more books. So, if you are tempted to stick with the story just to see how it ends, as I did, you'll likely be disappointed.SpoilersCharacter and details are where Clarke really falls down. She has a decent sense of pacing, but her ability to make her characters and world seem believable is lacking, and sometimes inexcusably so. Just a few pages into the story we find our erstwhile bride, Ananna of the Tanarau, escaping an arranged marriage by running off on a stolen camel. She leaps onto the saddle between the two humps and races off, with "me clinging to his neck in my silk dress". Really? Clinging to the neck of a running camel while also seated between the two humps? It is clear that Clarke didn't even bother to so much glance a picture of a camel before writing her story that prominently features **camels**. Sigh. That is the level of attention to detail that Clarke exhibits throughout the book. And she has a **masters degree** in creative writing, so presumably she knows how to use a library and Google but just couldn't be bothered.Perhaps Clarke thought that since she was writing a fantasy book she didn't need to do any research or have to know how anything looks or works in the real world.
Thanks to NetGalley and Strange Chemistry for this eARC!They say that the first few pages of a book will alter your perception of every page thereafter.This is exactly what happened to me with this book.In the first few pages, a lot of things happen. A LOT. Usually, this would be a good marker for me. However, the problem was that each and every event snapped my suspension of disbelief and threw me out of the world of the book. If you've never heard the term "suspension of disbelief" before, it just means the reader's ability to believe in something fantastical in the plot or in a character or so forth. In fantasy novels, often if the suspension of disbelief is snapped the reader will cease to believe any plot twist that happens after that point.And that's exactly what happened to me.I absolutely adored this premise, don't get me wrong. I had such high hopes that maybe I couldn't help but be let down. But the unfortunate thing about Ananna is that she never thinks about what she does. There is no preamble or thoughts about abandoning her fiance-which, by the way, means abandoning her entire way of life, her family, the sea, etc. She just gets annoyed with her fiance-to-never-be talking, sees a camel and is like "SO LONG, SUCKER!"It gets worse from there.Perhaps part of the problem was that the world building was never particularly solid. I got the main points about the world in which Ananna lives-which seems like a darn cool one-but several things I wanted explained never were. In fact, I got so annoyed with Ananna's calm accepting of things being left unexplained (big things. All the small things Naji didn't explain, she shouted "Bullshit!" and got up in his face about it.
3.5 STARSTHE ASSASSIN'S CURSE was surprisingly a fun read that I quickly devoured! I'm not one to read Pirate books, I don't even like Pirate movies, but with the raving reviews on goodreads, and the synopsis describing impossible curses, assassins, strange magic, evil wizards, and more, I was definitely intrigued!! And though I didn't love this book for certain reasons, I definitely didn't hate it either! THE ASSASSIN'S CURSE is filled with tons of fun and adventure, but what it's lacking is romance. I thought after reading the synopsis that they're would be a type of love/hate attraction and relationship forming between the main characters. But their wasn't, even though the main character Ananna does start to develop minor feelings for the assassin, but you don't know if he starts to feel anything for her as well. Their was no hints of flirtation, no butterflies whenever he comes near, no thoughts of how his lips would taste. NOTHING! And that was a big let down, because I wanted more, and it could of been so much better with a romance between them!! The world-building was phenomenal, filled with blood magic, assassins, pirates, evil wizards, witches, magical islands, and supernatural beings from another world! It had it all! And I enjoyed all the different aspects the author kept throwing at us. It didn't feel like too much, or overdone, or rushed, or anything like that. It was evened out and paced just right, and full of loads of fun and adventure! I LOVED both the main charters, Ananna and Naji for their own reasons. Ananna because she was a survivor, no matter what was thrown at her she would push herself to overcome it. She was fierce, strong-willed, determined to control her own fate, and a badass with a sword and her fist.
The Housewife Assassin's Handbook: The Housewife Assassin, Book 1 Grave Mercy: His Fair Assassin, Book I (His Fair Assassin Trilogy) The Assassin's Curse Tiger's Curse (Book 1 in the Tiger's Curse Series) The Art of Assassin's Creed Syndicate A Time to Die: Victor the Assassin, Book 6 American Assassin The Mark of the Assassin Tracking an Assassin!: Nickolas Flux and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (Nickolas Flux History Chronicles) The English Assassin (Gabriel Allon) The Pale Assassin Mortal Heart (His Fair Assassin Trilogy) Last Descendants: An Assassin's Creed Novel Series Assassin (The Lady Grace Mysteries) Assassin Assassin's Creed: A Walk Through History (1189-1868) Assassin's Creed: The Movie Novel IncrediBuilds: Assassin's Creed Deluxe Book and Model Set The Assassin's Blade: The Throne of Glass Novellas Russian Roulette: The Story of an Assassin (Alex Rider)
