Most days, Elea couldn't care less about having Necromancer magick. Who needs to conjure skeletons and sprits when you're a farm girl? Elea only uses her powers to speed up chores and scare off suitors. Everything changes when the evil Necromancer Tsar curses Elea. Now, Elea has five years left before she burns as a ghost, tortured for all eternity. They say there's nothing she can do, but Elea disagrees. She decides to embrace her Necromancer powers, train as a magickal assassin, and kill the Tsara ] All before his curse kills her. Impossible as it may sound, Elea thinks she has it in the bag, but then everything goes horribly wrong. That's when a handsome mage named Rowan steps up to help. Elea wants an ally, but she doesn't need all the mixed-up feelings that come along with Rowan's crooked smile. An assassination mission is no time to fall in love, but Elea's heart may have other ideas...
This surprised me. I liked it way more than I thought I might. The world building was interesting and it hit all the right fantasy tropes. Elea was very likable and the romance between her and Rowan was sweet. It was pretty tame really, the novel focuses way more on the actual plot of defeating the villain. I would've liked more secondary character development and a bit more background on Elea and her childhood but what was there worked. That said, I was disappointed with the ending - it does wrap the plot up - mostly - but just not in the way I liked. I wanted her and Rowan to talk and admit to feelings or not admit but decide they work well together and team up for the next adventure - and whether they do or not, decide that in this book. Still it was a fun read.
