I was going through my Netgalley shelf and realized I had gotten this one for review a long time ago. I even bought a paperback copy at one point, but eventually donated it as I lost interest. So I am shelving this one DNF for now.

While it looked like a long book at first with 500+ pages, after I started reading it, it went fast.

Ismae has had a hard life.
After living seventeen miserable years with her abusive father, he sells her to Guillo the pig farmer for a few coins, Ismae hopes that the arranged marriage will be her salvation, but Guillo is not her knight in shining armor. Marriage life is not kind to Ismae, she still endures beatings and even being locked away. She is soon rescued and is sent to the convent of St. Mortain, the god of death. Once there she learns of she was sired by death himself and gets the chance to study the art assassination and serve as a handmaiden to death.

I liked how Ismae grew within the book. Ismae was a strong heroine.

Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley for an early ARC eBook.

Although we have seen an improvement on this front in recent years, strong female protagonists are a rare breed, especially in fantasy novels. Grave Mercy's protagonist, Ismae, is a female lead that grabs ahold of the reins and drives this book to it's ending. She is a well-built character that uses her upbringing, not as a crutch, but as an experience that helps her grow into the warrior she becomes. The book is not perfect - but what book about assassin nuns is? Get it, I think you will be glad that you did.

(Tying up loose ends on my profile.)

Was unable to download the book at the time I was approved for it.

I read this book for a committee I was on and loved it. Ten years later, this book still has a readership in my library, so I believe it was successful.

This book is special to me because I bonded over it with my cousin. Court intrigue, assassin nuns, light fantasy? Honestly what more could you want!? The best part of this novel is how incredibly well researched it is. I loved the world building and want to know even more about this convent of assassins! Can't wait to read the rest of the series with my cousin and recommend it to my friends!

There have not been many books that I have found difficult to put aside to do the mundane trivialities of life, but this was definitely one of them! What a great book! For me, most fiction books that I have read lately, have not held my interest. The seem all the same - written in a formulaic style and they become boring. Grave Mercy wasn't like that for me.

Ismae is a strong character throughout the whole book. She's one you can't help but like and she struggles with many problems: her background, her training and her current position. She was a character that I enjoyed and her assignment was interesting.

What was most fascinating was the book was based on fact with artistic liberties taken. The characters were strong and well developed. I was so taken by the characters, I am going to be picking up the next book to see what happens next! I found the whole plot so interesting that I may be taking some time to look into the real history that this book is based on.

This book was marketed as Children's fiction, however, I would say young adult. The main character is old enough to be married as are many of the main characters, so it's not the run of the mill child's book. In fact, as an adult, it was perfect reading for me. I didn't find it childish, but more of just a good read. Yes - it was so good ,that I had to recommend it to my daughter that last time I spoke with her.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

This book surprised me!! It took me a second to get into it, as it has was a slow start. But once I got in, I flew through it. It was fun!

This book was a delightful surprise. I was immediately drawn into the story of Ismae. I am not a lover of historical fiction or fantasy, but I loved this story! I think it's because the author was light on fantasy, history, and romance and strong on story.

Wow! I really loved this book, but mostly because I really loved Ismae! The story takes place in 15th century Brittany and follows Ismae from a forced marriage when she is 14, which she escapes with the help of her village's herbwitch, to the convent of St. Mortain, where she is taught to serve the God of Death by becoming his assassin. Because she was treated horribly by everyone she knew growing up, she was all for it. She never wanted to feel weak or at the mercy of another ever again. By the age of 17, she is ready for her first assignment, which leads to her posing as the mistress of Gavriel Duval, the bastard brother of the young Duchess of Brittany. She is thrown into an unfamiliar world full of deceit and backstabbing in the court of the Duchess, and she doesn't know who to trust when everybody seems to have ulterior motives.

I was enthralled right from the start. The change in Ismae from weak and powerless to strong and capable was fun to watch. The characters were well written and the back story, most of which was taken from the pages of history itself, was well written. The world building was phenomenal! The book was a bit long, but it didn't seem bogged down with unnecessary information, and I found it to be an easy read because it was so well written.

In summary, I enjoyed reading this book very much and highly recommend it to those who love a good book that combines fantasy and historical fiction.,

5/5 stars.

I received a copy of this book free of charge in exchange for my honest opinion.

Grave Mercy is a rich historical fantasy novel that feels incredibly different than other books out on the market! It's a bit of a long book and does take a little bit of time for the action to get going, but once you get engrossed in it, you cannot stop reading it.

Ismae is a fascinating lead character. She goes through much at the beginning of the book and comes out completely transformed. I loved the group of assassins she is a part of and thought the world-build was superb. There are hints of magic but the book still manages to feel grounded in historical fiction.

We also get a great slow-burn romance between Ismae and Duval. Watching that build up over the course of the book was my favorite.

This book might not be for everyone. It does take a bit for the plot to get going and might be grounded in more history than some may like, but it's a book that's left an impression on me over the years and a great example of the amazing storytelling that happens in the YA genre.

I found this book to be improbably and oddly boring. I couldn't get into it and abandoned it about 40% of the way through. The blurb reeled me in but I didn't feel like the novel delivered on its promise.

Wow! I didn't think I would enjoy this book as much as I did but I can't wait to see what happens next. The teenaged girls in my school will love this new series. Female assassins!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book.

I really liked this book! It is rated as a children's book but I would rate it as a Young Adult book.

This had a great pace, and a great plot. If you like historical fiction and fantasy then this book is for you!

This is the first in the series and I can't wait to read more!

Thank you to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the opportunity to read and review this book.

One advantage of being offered books for review is that it has made me more adventurous as a reader. Even reading a bad book has some value to me if I can get a review out of it, so it’s not as much of a risk for me to take a chance on an unknown author.

I requested a copy of Grave Mercy on a whim; the blurb intrigued me. It is not a bad book, but I can’t say it was very successful for me. While the concept is interesting indeed, the execution felt strangely flat.

The story is set in 14th century Brittany, in an alternate world that diverges somewhat from historical fact (the world also contains some magical elements). Ismae is 14 years old and about to be forced into marriage to a brute by her equally brutish father. Rumor in their small village has long held that Ismae’s father is not her real father at all, and that she was instead sired by the god of death himself, St. Mortain. This is supposedly the reason that Ismae’s (long-gone) mother tried to abort her; obviously she didn’t succeed but Ismae bears a long, ugly scar on her body as a reminder of the poison that failed to expel her from the womb.

Ismae’s wedding night goes awry and she is beaten and then locked in a cellar by her husband; she is rescued by the very same herbwitch who had tried to abort her years before, and taken to the Convent of St. Mortain. Here Ismae discovers her value, as well as some special gifts. For one, she is largely impervious to poison; what would quickly kill another might make her mildly sick for a brief time. As the story unfolds, Ismae discovers other powers that touch on her unique relationship with death.

The nuns of St. Mortain train their charges to be assassins in the service of their god. (Mortain is called a saint to make him fit – more or less – into the Christian pantheon, but he and other saints were clearly repurposed from an earlier belief system.) For Ismae, serving Mortain means working with poisons and learning other skills that will make her deadly. When she is 17, she is sent out to make her first kill; her target is a traitor working for the French against the interests of Brittany’s ruler. The job goes off fairly successfully and Ismae is relatively free of guilt, which I appreciated.

The nuns of St. Mortain have various resources at their disposal that help them determine who to target for assassination. The convent has an elderly nun who acts as a seer. The assassins themselves can perceive a “marque” on the bodies of their victims that confirms that they are marked by St. Mortain for death (usually in the form of a shadow or smudge that may appear in the spot where the killing blow is eventually struck). It becomes evident though that the nuns are politically connected as well, and at least some of the killings (specifically, those that Ismae is involved in) are linked to the struggle between France and Brittany and perhaps based on information from outside sources who might have their own agendas.

Ismae struggles with her gratitude to the convent, her desire to be obedient, and her sense, which grows stronger as the book progresses, that the nuns of St. Mortain are not as infallible in their judgments as she’s been led to believe. Her disquiet increases when she is given an important assignment: she is sent to the court of Anne, Duchess of Brittany, the ruler whose control of the realm is threatened by the French. Ismae accompanies Gavriel Duval, a young and serious noble who happens to be Anne’s illegitimate half-brother. Ismae has been warned to keep an eye on Gavriel as the convent suspects he may be acting against Anne’s interests, but the idea of having to eventually perhaps kill him becomes more difficult as the two grow closer.

There’s a lot going on in this book – there is Ismae’s coming-of-age, as a woman and an assassin, the mythology of the alternate world the author creates, with its unfamiliar saints and fables, and there’s political intrigue. A lot of political intrigue. I’m not opposed to political intrigue as a matter of course, but I think it interests me more when it involves real history. Even so, fictional historical intrigue could be made interesting to me, but this just wasn’t that intriguing. Anne (who I was suprised to realize, late in the story, is much younger than I’d thought – around 12) is beset by potential enemies at every turn. She needs to marry to secure her kingdom’s safety from the French, but none of the prospects are appealing (the most persistent one is a dirty old man old enough to be her grandfather). She can’t trust all her advisers, but she doesn’t know which are truly and actively working against her and which are merely trying to push her in one direction or another for personal gain or because they honestly believe they are acting in Brittany’s best interests.

When I read back the description of the plot so far, I keep thinking that this sounds like a great book. That it wasn’t great isn’t attributable to any one thing, but a dozen small pieces that are missing: a great heroine, a great hero, a compelling love story, an intriguing villain, sparkling writing, a conflict worth taking a rooting interest in, surprising plot turns, a fantasy world that really came alive. If even a few of those elements were there, the book would’ve worked a whole lot better for me. As it was, it’s a book with a great set-up that was mediocre in every other way.

I would’ve liked Ismae better if she had been better at being what she was trained to be. In a way, her hesitancy was understandable: when the bulk of the story takes place Ismae has a handful of kills under her belt, and she’s still just 17. But one does get so tired of heroines who end up being something less than the bad-asses they were advertised to be. Readers who are ambivalent about assassins or tough heroines may actually prefer Ismae as she is. I don’t necessarily favor kick-ass heroines over other types, but once I expect a heroine to be kick-ass I get excessively annoyed when she doesn’t deliver. Ismae wasn’t incompetent, but she was far from kick-ass. For an assassin, she’s really kind of insipid. The most remarkable thing about Ismae is that she’s good at not dying of poison, and that’s not really something she gets the credit for.

The relationship between Ismae and Gavriel is pretty tepid. They are obviously attracted to each other but have so many missed connections that their romance quickly became frustrating to read about. I wondered how old Gavriel was supposed to be because at times he’s portrayed as sort of romance-hero-supercompetent, which suggested that he was a bit older (closer to 30), but other times he seemed quite young. I didn’t actually want him to be that old because Ismae is really a pretty young and sheltered 17-year-old, for all that she kills people for a living.

I couldn’t decide if the YA designation was appropriate for this book or not. The assassin theme would probably relegate it to suitability for older teens, mostly, but I’m not sure they’d be that interested in all of the political intrigue (I mean, I wasn’t that interested in the political intrigue). There was a certain lack of sophistication and complexity in the writing that’s reminiscent of other YA books I’ve read, which I guess is not exactly a compliment, but what I’m trying to say is that it did read like a YA to me in some ways. Even when serious things happen – murders, attempted rapes, attempted murders – it didn’t really feel too intense or scary. I think the writing felt like it was for a younger teen but the plotting for an older one. There was one very discreet sex scene.

Ultimately, the problem with Grave Mercy was that in spite of the intriguing possibilities presented by the concept, the book itself was just bland. My grade is a C.

Such an amazing read! I couldn’t put this one down. The characters are ones that you won’t forget and the plot is addictive !

I adore this entire series! Thanks to the publisher for the ARC and to Netgalley for letting me leave feedback saying how great all the His Fair Assassin books are at this late date.

This was a well thought out book. I really enjoyed the main characters development from scared little girl, to avenging angel, to a woman with a heart, feelings, and still a badass. I would have liked to hear more about the side characters (her friends from the abbey) because they all seemed like they might have been thrown in last minute to solve some plot issues. But I still really liked it. Maybe the books after this will deal more with what’s going on with them. Another thing I really liked was all the history and lore that was sprinkled though the story. But I often did feel like her gifts were kind of random and too convenient since they were just thrown in. Overall, really good.

Grave Mercy is the first in Robin LaFevers' series of female assassins/priestesses of the St Mortain. Ismae escapes a forced marriage at fourteen and lives among the nuns/priestesses and is trained in fighting, poisons, etc. Ismae becomes an active force and a strong political ally of Duval, they work together in court and as fighters. Grave Mercy is full of action, adventure and intrigue!

Set in an sort of alternative medieval France, this book is full of historical details that combined with the idea of a school for female assassins (which is run of all things by nuns) and and swoonworthy romance and danger make it hard to put down.

If I have one quibble, it is with the idea that sex is needed to save someone. The character chooses to engage in sex with someone they love but under the auspices of "or else this person will die,"