The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke

Release Date: October 2, 2012

Ananna of the Tanarau abandons ship when her parents try to marry her off to an allying pirate clan: she wants to captain her own boat, not serve as second-in-command to her handsome yet clueless fiance. But her escape has dire consequences when she learns the scorned clan has sent an assassin after her.

And when the assassin, Naji, finally catches up with her, things get even worse. Ananna inadvertently triggers a nasty curse — with a life-altering result. Now Ananna and Naji are forced to become uneasy allies as they work together to break the curse and return their lives back to normal. Or at least as normal as the lives of a pirate and an assassin can be.

When I first read the description for this book, I was thinking Pirates?? Magic? Assassins?? Count me in! And then I started reading...

It's not that this book was bad. It was just SLOW. And have I mentioned how sick-to-death I am of endings that just, well, end? Yes, I loved The Selection by Kiera Cass which ended very abruptly, then I read The Vicious Deep which I also liked, but the ending-in-the-middle-of-the-story made me roll my eyes and fight frustration. So by the time I got to this book, I had little or no patience for stupid endings where nothing gets resolved. At all. 

Other than that, I thought the storyline was pretty decent. I wish there were more pirate-y moments (No one even says Argh! Ha.) and more I'll-kill-you-before-you-even-have-a-chance-to-blink moments. Although the altercation between Naji and a pirate named Atano was pretty awesome. It was kind of what I expected most of the story to be though. Sadly, that may have been the most action in the book. And I'm talking about any kind of action. (Wink, wink.) No really though, if you wanted romance, this is NOT the book for you. Come to think of it, if you wanted violence, thievery, spells, and all manner of bad behavior, you most definitely picked the wrong book.

I know I'm pretty much talking you out of reading this book, but I have to say, even with the obnoxious drop-off ending and lack of everything I expected this book to be, I am intrigued enough to try out book two in this series whenever it is released. (Hello, this just came out last week. It'll be a while.) 

Happy Reading!

*I received this egalley from the publisher for the purpose of review.