Book Review: THE ASSASSIN'S CURSE by Cassandra Rose Clark

Shelley's Rating: 4.5 stars

Goodreads Blurb:

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.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13533650-the-assassin-s-curse


Shelley's Review:

I think this book could best be summed up as a young adult cross between the Pirates of the Caribbean and CS Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The book is written from Ananna's perspective, who is a seventeen-year-old pirate who is attempting to escape an arranged marriage. The language, while jarring, felt very authentic. Once I got used to the rough voice (the word "ain't" makes me cringe - and Ananna uses it a lot"), I was quickly sucked into the story. I found Ananna likable, even though she wasn't a particularly "good" person. I mean, she's a pirate after all! The plot flowed well and the action scenes were intense. The description was superb, and I really felt like I was trudging through the desert with them, and could smell the sea air when they were at sea. I absolutely loved Naji. I guess I have a thing about those wounded, damaged bad-boy type heroes.

My only complaint was about the ending, and thus the four-and-a-half star rating instead of five. It ended too abruptly, and I didn't feel like the story, for that book, was finished. I kept trying to scroll forward, sure that my download had been cut off or something, because it just stopped. It ended like a chapter would end, not a book. It needed something to pull everything together, to make it feel like the first book was finished and to set up the next book, instead of a "to be continued" feeling that it left me with. Now I have to wait until June 2013 for the next book! I should mention that I went into this book not realizing that it was the first book in the series. Had I known that before I got to the end, I might not have been as disappointed that I didn't get the resolution that I was expecting.

So, with that said, I would highly recommend picking up THE ASSASSIN'S CURSE by Cassandra Rose Clark from Strange Chemistry in October 2012!