Reviewed by EBookObsessed on
In an compelling new fantasy series, we meet Leena who is a beast Charmer. Her people can naturally charm and bond with beasts. But Leena has been banished from her homeland after being falsely accused by the man she loved of breaking their most sacred law never to charm the most cunning beasts of all – humans.
Leena refuses to live her life in the shadows for something she would never have done. She has plans to charm one of the most elusive beasts, a Class A beast, who would prove her worth and her innocence so she could go before the counsel once again and this time be heard over the charming lies of her ex-love.
Her plans are upset when she finds out the hard way that someone wants her out of the way bad enough and has hired the Cruor, assassins raised from the dead and who cloak themselves in shadows. They are such silent killers that their victims fall before they even know death was stalking them. They never fail to kill their target since they are magically bound to a contract. If they don’t make the kill, they die themselves. But the Cruor have never come up against a Charmer like Leena before and she uses her beasts to thwart her assassin and make him take her to his stronghold. Leena knows that the Cruor will never stop until she is dead. Her only means of survival would be to buy her way out of the contract.
But as Cruor have never had a target like Leena, Leena has never come upon anyone as cunning as their leader, Noc. He agrees that none of his men will fulfill the contract on Leena if she give him and his friends four beasts, never letting her know that he has taken on the contract himself and once she captures the beasts, Noc himself will dispatch her. If he doesn’t kill Leena, Noc will die.
Leena convinces Noc to take her toward the legendary beast she is looking for and she will charm beasts along the way for him and his men. The problem is that the more time Noc and his men spend with Leena, the more they come to like her. There are too many secrets and too much danger to the Cruor if they don’t fulfill their contract, but how do you kill someone who has become one of your family?
The story it noted as a cross between Assassin’s Creed and Fantastic Beasts but it takes the basic ideas and makes a story all its own. I liked Leena and her beasts. I liked Noc and his men. I had a hard time with Noc and Leena’s romance since Noc is under a curse and anyone he loves and who love him in return, falls ill and dies. So Noc is very cold and aloof to everyone, including his men, to keep them safe. This makes it hard for the romance to gel. Anytime there might have been feelings growing between them, Noc pulled back to protect her from the curse and leaving Leena feeling like a fool. She didn’t know how to feel and I had a hard time getting behind their romance. I kept wanting her to skip Noc and move on to Oz who was big and intimidating but actually very sweet and who was kind to her from the beginning. I enjoyed the bond between Oz and Leena and we had to go pretty far into the story for me to ship the right romance, but I still liked Oz.
There was great world building and we are introduced to some very interesting creatures. While it is not really a cliffhanger, this is the first of a trilogy so there will be some unfinished threads dangling at the end of the story. I definitely want to see where this story takes us.
Received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.