Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin #1)

Grave Mercy by R.L. LaFevers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I guess even assassin nuns can be boring after all.

Also called "daughters of Mortain", the god of death, often rescued from terrible living conditions - like our Ismae - this particular kind of nuns are trained and educated in a convent in honor of the god, and they dedicate their lives to the fulfillment of Mortains' will by killing people who carry the "marque" and who are guilty primarily of treason against their country.
Ismae has just been sold to her future husband - a brute man - by her father when she is rescued by the town's herbwitch and is sent to Mortain's convent. She bears a mark upon herself that makes her a daughter of Mortain and is, miraculously, immune to all poisons.
Fast forward three years of training in martial arts and whatnot, she is sent on a mission to unmask a plot to overthrow the coronation of Anne, the future duchess of Brittany, by following one of the suspects, her half brother Duval.

I admit being in a bit of a reading slump lately and I get easily distracted by life getting in the way but it truly took me forever to read this book. The first few chapters were tedious, uninteresting and awkwardly written. I am sure some of my fellow Goodreaders (I have a few in mind) would abandon it right there. But since I am nothing if not stubborn, I read it until the end.
I am quite glad I did, to be honest because it does get better, eventually. The pacing is still somewhat slow and the book is long (or so it seemed to me) but the plot became gradually engrossing and the heroine grew on me, as well as the other characters. That's why I'm giving it three stars; I actually enjoyed reading it, after all.

In my humble opinion as an amateur reviewer, this book needs some more work. It needs more editing, to tighten some long and useless scenes and conversations as well as various incoherencies in some scenes (like cloaks on when there's no mention of the actual putting on of the cloaks... you know, that kind of small mistakes).

Furthermore, I don't understand how can it can be categorized as young adult lit. It's not that it has blatantly adult content, like hot sex scenes or inappropriate language, but it certainly does not follow the usual young adult tropes.
Is it just because the heroines is 13 when the book starts? (and by the way my eyes bulged when I realized that). Her voice sounds a tad too mature for her to be 13.
I was thinking all this political intrigues and plots would probably not have interested me much in my teen years, I suppose. If you want more of a comparison, I'd say this is as much YA as Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder.

I was somehow irked in more than one occasion by Ismae's cluelessness. She gets to logical conclusions some lightyears too late, so much so that I felt banging my head on the way in more than one occasion. She also makes a very poor assassin considering her three years of training, by being clumsy and "green" (as Duval describes her); her very first mission was rather disastrous, I'd say.

Aside from these problems, the story was enjoyable. I liked the way the romance developed gradually, the idea of the story itself and how, though part of a series, it is a standalone in itself (by the little snippet at the end of the book, I understand the next book will focus on Sybella).

For lover of political intrigues in costume and of clueless heroines, this is your cup of tea.