Book Review: Dark Triumph by R.L. LaFevers

Dark Triumph is the second book in the His Fair Assassin series by R.L. LaFevers. If you have not read the first book, Grave Mercy, go do so now- I will wait for you. Seriously, assassin nuns, go and get it and this one right too while you are there.

In Grave Mercy we met Ismae and through her the convent that serves the god of death, Mortain. In Dark Triumph we follow Sybella from the convent on a mission that just might break her. She is forced to return to her family, whose cruelty and twisted ways nearly killed her once already.  She is to bring death to those marked, protect the duchess as best she can, and if necessary die in her efforts. When new orders and her plans to implement them destroy Sybella's hope to finally kill her father, she is led on a journey with the Beast of Waroch and facing something she fears much more than her own death, the safety of others and being vulnerable around those that would care for her. I do not recommend jumping into this series in the middle, the world and its politics and religions are a little complicated but well built in Grave Mercy. I rather wish I had gone back and reread the first book before diving in here, to remind myself of the more subtle points.

Dark Triumph is different from Grave Mercy in that it is more about Sybella as a person than the politics that are moving the action in this alternate history. She is led to questioning her beliefs, her sanity, and her worth. There were times in reading that I wanted to curl up on the floor in the fetal position because of the sheer torment that Sybella faced and the horrors lurking in her past. She doubts her mission, her god, and in turn her very nature because of those doubts. She is supposed to be a weapon of justice, but what if she is not following the right rules? Then, oh then, Sybella's and the journey with the heavily wounded Beast of Waroch, and all the more subtle dangers hidden there brought the story to a whole other level. I cannot say enough about the depth of the emotion in these pages and the genius found there.

I highly recommend Dark Triumph to anyone that read Grave Mercy. If you have not read either, then I say again- go get both! Do not expect more of the same, but a new and exciting story unique to Sybella and her world. I cannot wait to see what awaits another sister in this convent, Annith, in Mortal Heart which is scheduled for release in 2014.