‘Age Of Assassins’ is one of the best fantasy novels I’ve read in a very long time. To me, it felt much more real and immediate than most fantasy novels do. The storytelling was immediately immersive. The characters were unusual and engaging. The world-building was solid. delivering much more than a generic medieval-but-with-magic fantasy backdrop. The plot was structured so that it kept escalating the tension while elegantly integrating the main character’s backstory and delivering twists that kept me guessing.

When I picked ‘Age Of Assassins‘ from my TBR pile, I thought it looked like a fairly conventional fantasy setting but with some unconventional characters and motivations. I was hoping for something with a distinctive, gritty, English feel to it.

The grittiness was definitely there, not just in the characters and their motivations but in the society they lived in and the magic that they encountered. There’s nothing romantic about this world or the people in it. They are at best ruthless pragmatists and at worst cruel, vicious thugs. The richest and most powerful live in castles that have started to crumble, set in lands that have been all but destroyed by the large-scale use of magic in earlier times. There is little wealth and less hope. The ruling class is determined to hold what they have and everyone is simply trying to survive a little longer.

The story is told from the point of view of Clubfoot, a fifteen-year-old boy, apprenticed to an accomplished assassin. His age means that he is still discovering things about himself, his master and the world he lives in. He is intelligent, perceptive, brave and has a dry sense of humour that he is unable to suppress. I was fascinated by the relationship between him and his master. It’s much less cosy and yet has much more emotional depth than the Master/Apprentice labels might make it sound and discovering the details of the relationship was part of the pleasure of the book. I admired the way R. J. Barker altered Clubfoot’s perception of his master, slowly, reluctantly acknowledging her age, her fallibility and the emotional bond between them.

What I liked most about ‘Age Of Assassins‘ was that it grabbed and kept my full attention. I was so wrapped up in the story and in the people that I barely registered how R. J. Barker worked his magic on me. I love it when something is so well-written, so thoroughly imagined and so inherently engaging that I feel as though I’m walking through the writer’s imagination and seeing everything as they meant it to be. 

I’m a fan now. I’ve already bought ‘Blood Of Assassins‘, the second book in ‘The Wounded Kingdom’ trilogy.

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