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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
I didn’t know this was a second book of a series, but it was great! Couldn’t put if down.
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
An engaging coming of age tale. Quicker and more vibrant than the first. It was a pleasure to see the world evolve and take shape in this second novel.
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
I wish I had loved this a much as the first but it just didnt captivate me the same way.
'Thief's Cunning' is the second book in Sarah Ahiers' Assassin's Heart series. This second instalment takes place nearly two decades after the events in the first when Lea Saldana took revenge for the slaughter of her family. She and her now husband Les live in Yarin with her uncle Marcello and the children of her brothers that she saved from the night of the ghosts. Emilie is old enough to remember is life before but for Allegra she was only an infant. Trained in the family way of being a clipper Allegra only knows the life Lea has shown her and only the truths Lea gives her. When the king recalls the Saldana family to Loreno to swear featly to his daughter Allegra convinces Lea to let her go as well and she vows to herself to find the answers about her family that Lea won't give her. Little does she know how fast those answers will seek her out and expose her Da Vias bloodline to her.
spoilers
I'm not sure if it was Allegra or that it focused more on the travelers than the clippers but I didnt like this one as much as the first. In 'Assassin's Heart' theres so much interesting world building with the clipper system and the families and then the whole way that ghosts are made or not made depending on ones belief system. All that world building drew me in, even though I had a million questions, like why does the clipper putting the coin in the dead person cause them to be reborn and not the beliefs of the person that died. I didnt find the culture and the 3 gods system of the travelers as interesting. The story Nev tells of how all 3 came together was the best part. All the angry women scheming and hating on one another to gain status just made them seem like shrews. It's hard to understand why Allegra would want to stay there when it was never described in a favourable way. Every thought she had about Morina was negative, she was even against caging the animals, which is their only source of income. I get her not wanting to go back to the life she had to repeat the same patterns and mistakes that made her unhappy but why is she settling for a life she doesn't value?
I struggled to like Allegra, I can have compassion for her questioning and being upset knowing they are keeping something, things about her, from her. But the way she tosses away everyone from her life, the way she doesn't wait to figure out if the new things she's being told are actually all true and why. Having just read 'Assassin's Heart' it was tough to feel her anger with her cause everything that we saw Lea just went through and understanding the why. Lea didnt know that the Da Vias were about to be attacked by ghosts, she didnt know that the goddess was going to take action about them turning away from her. She saw what was left of both her brothers, and she wanted to save the children from being raised in a household that had cast aside the whole valve system she and her brothers had been raised to uphold. So it made sense that she took both. What didnt make sense was taking Allegra back to Loreno without saying anything. I assume rumour would have gotten back to her which Da Vias had survived, she should have know Val and Claudia were living and I would think everyone would assume they would take a chance to approach Allegra. Why didnt they sit her down and tell her the truths that nearly every clipper in Loreno would know. They were taking her to a ball with clippers from every family there.
Despite not liking this one as much as the first I did still enjoy the book.
'Thief's Cunning' is the second book in Sarah Ahiers' Assassin's Heart series. This second instalment takes place nearly two decades after the events in the first when Lea Saldana took revenge for the slaughter of her family. She and her now husband Les live in Yarin with her uncle Marcello and the children of her brothers that she saved from the night of the ghosts. Emilie is old enough to remember is life before but for Allegra she was only an infant. Trained in the family way of being a clipper Allegra only knows the life Lea has shown her and only the truths Lea gives her. When the king recalls the Saldana family to Loreno to swear featly to his daughter Allegra convinces Lea to let her go as well and she vows to herself to find the answers about her family that Lea won't give her. Little does she know how fast those answers will seek her out and expose her Da Vias bloodline to her.
spoilers
I'm not sure if it was Allegra or that it focused more on the travelers than the clippers but I didnt like this one as much as the first. In 'Assassin's Heart' theres so much interesting world building with the clipper system and the families and then the whole way that ghosts are made or not made depending on ones belief system. All that world building drew me in, even though I had a million questions, like why does the clipper putting the coin in the dead person cause them to be reborn and not the beliefs of the person that died. I didnt find the culture and the 3 gods system of the travelers as interesting. The story Nev tells of how all 3 came together was the best part. All the angry women scheming and hating on one another to gain status just made them seem like shrews. It's hard to understand why Allegra would want to stay there when it was never described in a favourable way. Every thought she had about Morina was negative, she was even against caging the animals, which is their only source of income. I get her not wanting to go back to the life she had to repeat the same patterns and mistakes that made her unhappy but why is she settling for a life she doesn't value?
I struggled to like Allegra, I can have compassion for her questioning and being upset knowing they are keeping something, things about her, from her. But the way she tosses away everyone from her life, the way she doesn't wait to figure out if the new things she's being told are actually all true and why. Having just read 'Assassin's Heart' it was tough to feel her anger with her cause everything that we saw Lea just went through and understanding the why. Lea didnt know that the Da Vias were about to be attacked by ghosts, she didnt know that the goddess was going to take action about them turning away from her. She saw what was left of both her brothers, and she wanted to save the children from being raised in a household that had cast aside the whole valve system she and her brothers had been raised to uphold. So it made sense that she took both. What didnt make sense was taking Allegra back to Loreno without saying anything. I assume rumour would have gotten back to her which Da Vias had survived, she should have know Val and Claudia were living and I would think everyone would assume they would take a chance to approach Allegra. Why didnt they sit her down and tell her the truths that nearly every clipper in Loreno would know. They were taking her to a ball with clippers from every family there.
Despite not liking this one as much as the first I did still enjoy the book.
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
The book was defiantly interesting to read, but the character development was left wanting and the characters them self fell flat.
Read the full review on my blog
Merged review:
The book was defiantly interesting to read, but the character development was left wanting and the characters them self fell flat.
Read the full review on my blog
Read the full review on my blog
Merged review:
The book was defiantly interesting to read, but the character development was left wanting and the characters them self fell flat.
Read the full review on my blog
I definitely didn't like this one as much as the first. I felt the story wasn't as strong, but that could also be because I don't necessarily relate tot he teenage rebellion story arc that this was largely based on. I could sympathiize with Allegra's desire to know where she came from, but in the end I didn't really connect with her the way I did with Lea in the first book. Also, I didn't much like any Nev or any of the Travellers because I did like Les, and the way they treated him (even in this book) was terrible.
Thief's Cunning picks up eighteen years after the end of Assassin's Heart and follows the story of Allegra Saldana as she discovers her true heritage and struggles to find her place. Allegra could have been a really interesting character, but for the most part, I found her annoying. It was nice to see a grown up Lea and Les, as well as Emile. This book wasn't nearly as adventurous as the first one and was overall, much less exciting than I expected it to be.