Blurb:
Caledon Holt is the kingdom’s deadliest weapon. No one alive can best him in speed, strength, or brains, which is why he’s the Hearthstone Guild’s most dangerous member. Cal is also the Queen’s Assassin bound to her by magic and unable to leave her service until the task she’s set for him is fulfilled.
Shadow of the Honey Glade has been training all her life to join the Guild, hoping that one day she’ll become an assassin as feared and revered as Cal. But Shadow’s mother and aunts expect her to serve the crown as a lady of the Renovian Court.
When a surprise attack brings Shadow and Cal together, they’re forced to team up as assassin and apprentice. Even though Shadow’s life belongs to the court and Cal’s belongs to the queen, they cannot deny their attraction to each other. But now, with war on the horizon and true love at risk, Shadow and Cal will uncover a shocking web of lies that will change their paths forever.
Rating: 4/5 stars
Side Notes:
- Genres: Fantasy Fiction
- Highly recommend for 12 years and above
- First book in The Queen’s Assassin duology
- Romance Tropes: Strangers to lovers, enemies to lovers, secret identity, forced close quarters
Book Quotes:
- “A promise between two souls,” he says, but he only has eyes for Shadow. “A promise can be broken,” Shadow replies. “Not mine,” he says, so quietly that he’s not sure she can hear him. “Nor mine,” she says, which means that she did. They catch each other’s eye, and Cal wants nothing more than to reach across the table for her hand and to pull her to him. But they are at the Duke and Duchess of Girt’s table, and must conform to propriety.”
- “I would rather remain in a cell for the rest of my life than see you throw your life away.” “It is mine to do with as I wish,” I say softly. “Here.” I push the box closer to him. “Please take it. Find the scrolls. You’re almost free. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?” “I am not free, not without my love,” he says, and this time, when he looks at me, I don’t look away. My love. How do I answer that? There has always been so much unspoken between us. And yet now that we’re together, now that he’s saying the words I’ve so longed to hear, it is hopeless. Our fate is already sealed. “Leave with me. We can run away; we’ve done it before. We can find the scrolls together,” he says, taking my hands in his. “Shadow. Be with me. Always. I am yours. Be mine.”
- “My aunts taught me that sometimes when the world is too much, when life starts to feel overwhelming, we must strip away what’s unnecessary, seek out the quiet, and listen to the dirt and trees. “All the answers you seek are there, but only if you are willing to hear them.”
- “At the door stood the strangest, most beautiful being Alphonia had ever seen, a silver-haired mage with violet eyes, neither female nor male, but both, as all the most powerful mages are.”
- “Today he hasn’t been half as irritating, which I find rather irritating.”
- “There she is, our lady of perpetual sleep!” he says smiling broadly.”
- “As I’ve already explained, Lady Shadow, I’ve spent a lot of time at court. I’m already well-versed in the art of bowing and keeping my mouth shut.”
- “The duke is oblivious to all of this. He seems to regard himself as above everyone else, even—and maybe especially—his wife. Like they’re all children he’s tolerating until they’re sent back into the nursery with the governess.”
- “Don’t get me wrong. I know he loved me. But I don’t think he knew how to be a father.”
- “But the queen thinks only of her country. She will stop at nothing to find the scrolls, for they are the key to her family’s protection . . . and her country’s salvation.”
- “It’s alarming, really, how quickly nice people become ravenous, bloodthirsty.”
- “Cal, listen to me.” I reach for his hands. Mine are shaking. “Hansen will have my name and my kingdom. But he will never have my heart. That remains with you, my love, forever.”
- “We may not have tomorrow, but we have tonight.”
- “Where will you go?” I ask him. My hands fist the sheets, rumpling them. He doesn’t answer. “I ask too much,” I say. Of course he will not return to me. I am to marry another, and being the queen’s consort is beneath him. He would be under constant threat of discovery, and with little more status than one of my servants. Once he has fulfilled his vow, he has a barony in his future, land, riches, freedom to marry, to have children of his own. “You ask so little,” he says. “But that is not the reason.” He takes my hand and presses it to his lips.”
- “My aunts warned me of this many times—be wary of the sway of others, they told me. Find your own path and stay upon it. Don’t allow yourself to be pulled in another direction, even if you must walk alone. “Do the most good,” is their favourite saying. The most good. I like that, because it allows for, well, some of the not-so-good too. Sometimes a bit of that is necessary.”
- “Of course,” Carl’s father would say, “this is just a story and stories are always a little bit true and a little bit false; we just don’t know which is which.”
- “ The lesson, my son, is that we alone, no matter how skilled or smart or how rich, are but spokes and cannot move the wheel alone, only together can we do that.”
- “It’s vital that we work together,” he says. “Arguments will only slow us down.” “We wouldn’t argue if you didn’t contradict everything I say. Hold on, I mean you if you don’t want to hear anything I have to say. You think you have all the answers already.”