Assassins of Tamurin

     Assassins of Tamurin is about an orphaned girl named Lale. She was found floating on the river by a poor village. Despite being unwanted, the villagers feared the bad luck that would come from either ignoring or killing the girl so they took her in and raised her. Sadly, nothing Lale did was ever right for the villagers. Shortly after she turned eleven, she finally screwed up one time too many which led to the village shunning her. Shunning involved giving her just enough food to live but otherwise not acknowledging her in anyway except for removing her when she entered a home or tried to take something. After a few days and sick of being ignored, she made a deal with the villagers, give her enough food to walk to the next village and she would leave forever. Lale is soon found by Makina Seval, the Despotana (i.e. ruler) of a small country with a penchant for taking in orphaned girls and educating them until they are old enough to learn a trade or marry so she can increase her political reach. 

     This is when the story slows down for a few chapters as side characters are introduced in the form of Lale’s classmates and teachers, bonds formed, and growing up happens. It’s mostly certain events that shape Lale’s personality and her desires of what she wants her adulthood to be like. Eventually, it skips to what amounts to a graduation ceremony. She is given the choice of apprenticing to the teacher of her least enjoyable subject or join the a select group of women in worshiping the Goddess at a special shrine the Despotana runs.  Lale chooses the lesser of two evils and joins the church. Soon she learns that the shrine is just a cover for a school to train spies and assassins. The story gets deeper as Lale is sent out into the world to spy for the Despotana and is drawn into a huge web of sorcery, deceit, and intrigue. It becomes pretty much everything you want in a fantasy novel.

     For a novel that was written as a one shot, the world is well thought out and mapped in such a way that it is hard to believe that there weren’t any sequels. The characters are so believable and realistic that it’s easy to feel sympathy for their plights. While there are parts that are a bit slow, it is never enough to completely bore a person to tears and they never last long. Truthfully, most of the slow bits are necessary to explain the political background. If you like books with loads of intrigue and a strong female lead, this is a good choice.