Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller


Sallot Leon earns their living as a thief, beholden to a cruel boss who will take fingers for insubordination. When they take a flyer from a rich woman that advertises a competition of sorts for the role of Opal, one of the Queen's loyal assassins. Sal gets there with proof of a kill (messy and traumatic, but necessary) and is one of 23 people to get past the screening. They are all numbered, masked, and given rules for each stage of the competition. Underneath it all, Sal burns for revenge for her dead people and ravaged land. Will their ulterior motive get in the way of the competition or will Sal be ruthless enough to succeed?

Mask of Shadows is a high fantasy novel that had some unique elements and kept me reading. Sal is a genderfluid person who goes by he, she, or they depending on how they feel and indicated by their clothing. This is established and then not highlighted until people misgender them. It's treated as any other gender and fully integrated into the character. Sal is a competent thief, skilled in weapons, but lacking in other areas. Some of the applicants are wealthy, educated, and well fed while Sal learned on the street while their boss kept them poor and hungry. They are unfamiliar with advanced medicine, herbs and poisons, etiquette, and archery. It was satisfying to see them succeed in some places and struggle in others instead of being good at everything. The most unrealistic aspect of them is getting over the horror of killing people way too quickly. Sal has an affable nature most of the time with some sarcasm thrown in, but the thing that makes them the most angry is the fate of their homeland and the people who destroyed it running free and being prosperous.

The world is interesting and told in small bits throughout the book. Sal came from Nacea, a place that no longer exists. It and all its people except Sal were destroyed by shadows, magical creatures who flay people alive. Nacea was caught in the middle in the war between Erland and Alona. Erland knew about the shadows, but only cleared out their own people and hoped the shadows would be slowed down by Nacean lives. Alona and the Queen only won because she took away all magic. Magic users have no other skills and take over many jobs that would have gone to less qualified people. Now, the Erland nobles are needed to keep their land as it merged with Alone in line even though they are all pretty much biding their time before they can overthrow the Queen. The court intrigue is well done and layered. So many people are plotting against each other, being nice to each other's faces, and biding their time.

The competition has a similar vibe to court intrigue, but with defined rules for each stage and the knowledge that your competition will kill you when given the chance. Some spaces are safe while others are fair game, but no kill is successful unless there is no evidence tying the assassin to it. They are offered training and classes that they have the option to take with the risk that their enemies will know their routine. Sal and the other contestants have to be on guard constantly and think of ways to kill their opponents. Even though they are all assassins, the good and bad are differentiated. Which ones enjoy the kill and even torture as opposed to those who kill only when necessary. Even though they are addressed exclusively by their numbers, I found them memorable and easy to tell apart by their actions.

Mask of Shadows exceeded my expectations and had me reading it in long stretches. It has intrigue, magic, assassins, acrobats, romance, and a relatable main character. The only real flaw of the book is how Sal broke several social rules and never really experienced consequences for it. As someone with very little social clout, this should have been a bigger deal. This is a pretty small detail in the bigger picture of the book. Other than that, the novel is such a fast read that kept me guessing what would happen.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

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