Right off the bat, the world building is really well written and helpful for giving me that foundation moving forward into the story. The characters all do come of the page quite nicely and there’s enough information to keep me moving along with them at a good pace. I’m excited to read more.

I was provided with an ARC excerpt in exchange for providing an honest review. At first I didn’t realize it was just the first portion of the novel and was so disappointed I have to wait now to read the rest of the book when it comes out! 🙈📚

I’ve had other books of Melissa De La Cruz on my TBR for a while so when I stumbled across this on my NetGalley I couldn’t pass it up. The parts of the book I had the pleasure of reading were straightforward and an easy reading level for me. It’s a YA fantasy novel geared towards a younger audience but was still a fun read. The book has a great setup with a lot of history upfront and the characters seemed interesting! Recommend for anyone looking for an early-SJM (aka Throne of Glass) feel with assassins, romance and forbidden magic.


My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

𝐄𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 ✔️
𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐌𝐞
𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 / 𝐏𝐥𝐨𝐭 ✔️
𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬
𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 & 𝐄𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 ✔️

hovering between 2.5-3stars.

The Queen's Assassin was just OK for me; the plot was alright but fell flat..... there was something missing....something that could have taken it closer to a 3 or even 3.5-star rating. I've been trying to figure out what was that missing thing and I think that there wasn't enough development of the plot and characters because I had trouble connecting to the characters...maybe because there were so many POVs and not enough follow-through?

The cover is gorgeous though; I really do appreciate beautiful cover art.

This was a sample provided of the book. I enjoyed the beginning of this book and will definitely be buying to finish!

Fantastic start to a book! I have just finished the sampler with the first couple of chapters and I must say, I am intrigued! I like where the storyline seems to be going. I will have to pick up a copy of this for myself so I can see how the story unfolds!

From my sampler, “The Queen’s Assassin” details an ambitious girl named Shadow who aims to join the Guild despite her aunts. While exploring, she comes upon Caledon Holt, the Queen’s Assassin. Like his father, he is obligated to discover the missing Deian Scrolls.

While I do love the premise of this book, I did not enjoy the “information dump” that came my way in the prologue explaining Renovia and the Aphrasians. I found it difficult to follow because of the names’ unfamiliarity, so I had to constantly reread passages. As for Shadow, I admired her bravery but would prefer more character depth into her history and aspirations for the rest of the novel. I also noticed that there was a lot more “tell” than “show” to describe her emotions and feelings in the narration. Overall, a good read!

I was only give the first few chapters to read from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review so I'll try as best I can.

The things I did like? The whole beginning. The Queen in trouble alone because the King is dead and she's afraid for her child so she makes a magic promise to her assassin? I love that. I wish the whole book had been that and continued from there instead of jumping ahead.

I felt like Violla was stale and boring the bit I got to read of her. She didn't do much but seemed to know everything in order for me to catch up to the jump ahead in years. The whole 'living in the woods away from Queen mom because of the evil people coming to get me' is very overdone in my opinion.

I don't think I'll look for more of this one.

I loved the preview of this book! I was sucked in and now I can't wait to read the whole book! The story line sounds great and I can't wait to find out what adventures are to come!

I really, really wanted to like this book. I just finished up Alex & Eliza by this author and honestly really enjoyed it, so perhaps I came into this one with my hopes a little higher than they should have been.

First of all, while I can tell the story has promise... much of that promise feels like a rehash of so many other titles that have recently been in the spotlight. The book starts off with a history lesson that, to me, is painfully reminiscent of the opening to The Fellowship of the Ring - by which I mean tedious and a wee bit dull, with far too great of an information dump all at once with seemingly little reason other than, 'hey, have an excerpt of a book within a book'. Honestly, that part was so difficult for me to get around, it made the first bits of the actual story a little bland, because... How did I wind up in history class? It was just really off-putting to be painfully honest. While I was somewhat interested towards the end of the sampler, I was not invested enough to go out and spend my money on what feels like essentially a recycled mashup of recent best sellers. Sorry, but I'm going to have to give this one a pass on further reading - or maybe wait for it to hit library shelves.

Okay so I had low expectations for this book. I wasn’t fully sure what it was about and hadn’t heard about it much before. And wow did it exceed every expectation I had. Let’s start off with the female main character rescuing the male....I mean what more could I ask for? Oh wait the TWO LOVE INTERESTS AND ONE BED!! ~sexual tension~
Altogether the banter, romance, and storyline were great and I can’t wait to read the next book!

The Queen's Assassin - 4 Stars

One of my go-to types of novels is anything that has to be with royalty, and when I saw this title - I knew I had to try it out. I'm upset that the entire book isn't out as the sample had a lot of information that I feel would be very important to remember for the rest of the book. Starting with the history of the world and moving towards the king's death during a battle, we meet Queen Lillian, who asks Kings Assasin if he will make a vow to her. Over 18 years later, Shadow is introduced who wants to be apart of the guild after being taught by her aunts while her mom was on the queen's court. Caldon, now the queen's assassin, starts a journey to find the Deian Scrolls, find the magical history, along with Shadow. and then the sample ended. I will be added this one to TBR.

I was provided this sample of The Queen's Assassin for my honest opinion.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Books for this sample.

AHHHH

Oh my gosh!!! This sampler was soooooo good!!!!! Even though it was only a few chapters, it engaged me so much and made me want to read the actual book when it comes out. I've read and heard of a few other books by this author so I was very intrigued. After reading this, I can't wait till February Second and I can't wait to learn more about this world and the characters. (I loved the characters so much as well)

I can tell that this is going to turn out to be a fantastic series.

I mean, the title!! THE TITLE!! I love books with assassins, haha.

Anyway, once this book comes out, I highly recommend it. (at least from what I've read in the sampler :)

Even though this was only just a sample... it has left me craving more!!

I have read the Blue Blood series by this author before years ago, and I can already tell that this book is most likely going to be so much better!!

I can not wait until the book is released so I can read the entirety of it!

I appreciated that this book starts with a background for the kingdom and the history which helps the reader quickly understand the situation. Although just a few chapters in this sample, I feel that I already know the potential 'twist' which may be in place, however, enjoyed the writing style and characters so far so will likely pick up the full version when I'm looking for some escapism.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Books for the chance to read this sample ahead of publication for an honest review.

I understand it was a sample and I may be willing to give the full book a chance in the future, but from what I read this just isn’t my type of fantasy.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book though I shouldn’t have been since Melissa de la Cruz always writes amazing, unique stories.

This book had a lot of information to take in at the beginning of the book which was great because it gives the reader the knowledge on what has happened in the past so that they have a better understanding of what is happening in the book. It was a great first 3 chapters I look forward to getting a chance to read the rest of this book so that I can find out what happens with these characters.

This preview was everything. I am so excited to read the rest of this book! If this is anything to go by, I am sure it will be amazing!

Thank you to the publisher, and Netgalley for this 42 page sneak peek!

I'm very intrigued by snippet! It was quite the info dump at the beginning, but I understand we needed that back story to be able to get into the story so I pushed through it. I do feel it was hard to keep the names and places straight though.

I wish there had been a second person in these first scenes with Shadow, to have some dialogue to break it up after the info heavy introduction.

I am excited to see where Shadow's story goes and I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for when this releases!

I only had the chance to read an excerpt of this book, and what I read intrigued me. I want to know more about Shadow, I think that there is a lot more to her than what I’ve seen so far. Caledon is another character that has a lot more to him than what is seen in this excerpt. This excerpt caught my attention enough to make me want to get my hands on the whole book to see what will happen to Shadow and Cal.a