thank you netgalley and the publisher for giving me a copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

Lina is a trained assassin who is now working under the claws of the man and gang who killed her family under the threat of hurting her little sister Eunbi. One day she is tasked to steal a tapestry who turns out belongs to the pied piper. Turns out Pied piper is angry at her for doing so and besides kidnapping her boss ( whom now she has to rescue if she doesnt want the gang to come for her little sister) she has now striken a bargain with him. Kill him within 14 days and she will be free or fail to do so and die.

The premise alone was enough to make me interested. It had kdrama vibes and tbh enemies to lovers in fantasy?? we love them. Being honest i struggled a bit at the beginning. I didnt know how the story or the plot were going to go but what Sophie Kim did was introduce us slowly into the world and Korean Folklore.
Lina as a character confused me at times. She is THE REAPER yet she is so trusting of everyone. The n i remmeber her backstory and i can see someone that what truly wants is to not be alone and her trusting everyone makes sense. She just wants to find friends. She was strong yet vulnerable she felt real and complex. This is personal but i dont like the I am strong and indepenant and nothing can kill me i am a bad bitch vibe some books have. I want badassness with feelings and Sophie delivered that exactly.

Rui, i though he was too much like other male characters at first. At some point i though wow the author likes enemies to lovers and is kinda following the blueprint of male characters. We didnt get to know him until later and i am grateful. We knew him at the same pace as Lina did and we could understand him and his actions better and feel more conected to Lina.

What i found lacking about characters was how little description were there about the side characters. They appear yet they feel only ornamental like they are only there just as not to have only 2 characters in the novel. I didnt need them to have like a 100 page arc but i needed more than to know their name and a description of their hair at the beginning.

There were so many 5 star scenes yet i can only give it 4 stars based on how i struggled at the beggining and the underdeveloped side characters. not mentioning how it felt like the author chose 2 plot devices and then she separated them . One thing happens now and the other will happen on the following book. Felt a little anticlimatic

4.5/5 ⭐️

What an absolutely amazing debut. When I started this I was in a bit of a slump but once I got started I could not put this book down. Not only did I read this in one sitting, I had an AMAZING time. There are so many aspects about this story I love.

There are so many common ya tropes in here such enemies to lovers, who did this to, knife to the throat, and a few more. The way they were interwoven into the story and Korean mythology was incredible. The world building is so wonderfully built and so easy to understand.

And Lina and Rui? Don’t get me started on them! First I want to talk about Lina because she is a badass knife wielding assassin and I’m quite sure I fell in love with her. Lina’s grief and her perseverance through that grief to protect her little sister—who is absolutely adorable, by the way—was so beautifully done and so heartbreaking. And I would never want to cross her. Like, ever. Lina is very hard throughout a lot of the book because of what has happened to her but I think that’s what made me love her softer moments so much more. They didn’t happen too often but when they did my heart burst because it showed, that even for a moment, she thought she was safe.

Now is Rui a few centuries older than Lina? Yes. Do I care? Not really cause I love him and their relationship. Rui is truly such a fun character. He literally asks Lina to try and kill him because he was bored! Their banter together was simply fantastic. They compliment each other so well despite their barbed insults to each other. And Rui is so soft towards Lina ugh my heart. (You guys can’t tell through the screen but I’m giggling while thinking of Lina and Rui’s moments.) And I am so excited to see more of them individually and as a couple in the sequel. (Which I would like, immediately, thank you. I would like more of this masterpiece.)

This is a very long winded way of saying, this book is amazing, please read it.

Last of the Talons, by Sophie Kim, is the first installment in the authors Talons trilogy. Think of Last of the Talons as Labyrinth with Six of Crows, but with Korean mythology and goblins called Dokkaebi. This story is set to the backdrop of the fictional Kingdom of Sunpo. After the destruction of her entire Talon family one year ago, 18-year-old Shin Lina; the Reaper of Sunpo, is forced to become a living, breathing weapon for the kingdom’s most-feared crime lord, Konrarnd Kalmin.

All that keeps Lina from turning on Kalmin is the life of her beloved little sister, Eunbi, which hangs in the balance if Lina betrays him in anyway. Kalmin orders Lina to steal a priceless tapestry from a Dokkaebi temple which has been abandoned for centuries. A tapestry that is said to be woven with priceless jewels. When Kalmin is kidnapped, his second Asina gives Lina 30 days to bring him back or her sister will face the consequences of her failure.

After she fails for a game called Mouse Trap, Lina ends up in Gyeulcheon, the land of immortals, where the terrible Emperor Haneul Rui makes her an offer she can't refuse. She has 14 days to kill him, or he will kill her and she'll never see her sister again. The catch is that Rui is actually the Pied Piper who has lured humans to his realm where they are mostly servants to the immortals who live there. Now a terrible game of life and death has begun, and even Lina's swift, precise blade is no match for the magnetic Haneul Rui.

Lina will have to use every weapon in her arsenal if she wants to outplay this cunning king and save her sister...all before the final grain of sand leaks out of the hourglass. This is also an emotional story. Both Lina and Rui have tragic backstories. The plot is literally unpredictable. In every chapter we have Lina and Rui with their conversations that lead to something really unexpected. He teases and taunts her and slowly begins to care for her, wanting to support and be there for her and is in awe of her strength and bravery.

This is literally an enemies become something more with a little betrayal and some surprises thrown in to keep your attention. I wasn't aware that this was going to be a trilogy, but heaven help me, and the sun doesn't stop shining, I'll continue the series to see what happens next in Lina's adventures.

A thief who is forced into a deadly game of cat and mouse with a terrible emperor... the challenge: kill him and be set free in 14 days... or die. Shin Lina is a famous thief and assassin known as the Reaper of Sunho. She is the last of her gang... her family... they all were killed by the man that has captured her and forced her to work for him. He threatens to kill her little sister if she does not comply, so when he forces her to steal a priceless tapestry from a Dokkaebi (Goblin) she does... only to be faced with even deadlier consequences as this long thought to have been gone god has come back to claim her to face his wrath after stealing from him. Rui just so happens to be the emperor... and the legendary Pied Piper, a god who can play a flute that controls people... and he has offered her a chance to win back her life: if she kills him in 14 days. Killing an immortal god should be easy for someone like her right? It doesnt help that he kidnapped her crime boss ( despite her wanting to kill that man herself) but her current employers are threatening to kill her sister if she doesn’t return him in 30 days... she’s running on two timers. But trapped in an unknown kingdom, with a mysterious emperor who wants her to kill him yet is taking her to fancy dinners, balls, moonlight walks, and horse rides around his kingdom... something is going on and Lina is going to unravel it. Besides the infuriating and handsome Rui challenging her, Lina also finds herself in the middle of a revolution.... yet who can she trust? Can she allow herself to open up after all the pains that haunt her, after all the trauma and grief that lingers? This was an amazing enemies to lovers story. I adored the dynamic between Rui and Lina. Seriously Rui, I swoon for him. *Thanks Netgalley and Entangled Publishing, LLC, Entangled: Teen for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

3.5 out of 5 stars (3.5 / 5) Lina finds herself without her Talon gang of assassins. She is forced to work for the opposing gang where she gets wrangled into a bargain with the emperor. The bargain involves either losing his life or hers. While staying at his palace, she plans his death while dreaming of “after” when she can take care of her sister.

I had total cover love with this one! I’ve learned I really love Asian literature so when I found this on Korean mythology I jumped on it.

“Bargains involve promises. Agreements. Honesty. I have to wonder, Pied Piper, how much your word is worth.”

Lina has had a hard life that has led her to this agreement with the emperor. He is the Pied Piper and can magically coerce people very easily. This starts their difficult relationship when she see his humans as slaves. She promises herself she will kill him to be with her sister.

I had a few problems with the story. First off, we hear about her sister a lot, but we get very little information on her. I get that the sister bond is strong but I needed more examples or secret meetings with her to fully be endeared to her. We never really “met” her. Next, I would have liked more stories on the Blackbloods/Talons conflict because other than being the opposing gang, it took a long time to see why they were rivals. Another aspect was that her “big story” from her past came in at the end of the book. There is a lot that works for that. However, I never felt endeared to Lina and I wonder if knowing at least more bits and pieces of that story would have helped me connect with her. It was something huge that shaped her entire existence. I felt in the dark for too long. Also, at times the jumping between timelines became confusing. A title hint or something would have been great.

It sounds like I had a lot of dislikes, and I did, but I was also entertained. The story has great promise and I’m excited to see the next installment!

Thank you to Entangled Teen and NetGalley for the gifted copy!

The book releases September 27, 2022.

Last of the Talons didn't super work for me. I went into this book pretty blind and found out quickly it was an enemies to lovers trope which is one of my least favorite things to read (very rarely do I enjoy these types of books). It instantly takes away from the main purpose of the plot (to kill an emperor) when you already know the two characters are going to fall for one another and find a way to excuse all of their terrible behaviors towards each other.
Not only that, but the main character is this feared and revered assassin who, despite how much she talks about it, isn't really that badass. She fails more than she succeeds in the book, often wavering in her own convictions. It often became eyeroll inducing whenever the main would talk about how badass she was because there was never any proof. It felt like the author wanted to create this intense character with this dark backstory without actually showing that darkness and grit and keeping it PG throughout the story.
What the author was trying to sell me wasn't what was actually delivered. In the end, the mythology also felt like a copy and paste of other YA fantasies out there right now (Court of Thorns and Roses instantly comes to mind. Girl trapped in a castle, doesn't want to be there, goes to balls, falls in love with capture, etc).

The premise of this is fascinating, I just couldn't make myself like it. It was very hard for me to get into and the plot did nothing for me. Very interesting world-building and seemed like it was paced pretty well, I just personally didn't enjoy it at all sadly.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an arc of this in exchange for an honest review.

2.5/3 stars

I wanted to like this book so much but sadly I was very disappointed.
It has good ideas and both our main character and the action and atmosphere of this was great but the plot itself... like the world building was not what I was expecting.
It felt like there was an idea and the author tried to poured all of it into this and it didn't played well.
My main issue is that our FMC has this reputation of being amazing and powerful and I don't know... fierce (?) And honestly that's not what we got. She did and acted so not like the fierce warrior I was expecting and sometimes she came across as she didn't know what to do (for someone who was presented as experienced) so I was very confused with that.
Also the romance felt forced and not real although it wasn't my priority when I picked this one up.
Still this was somewhat fun and interesting.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5 🌶️ 4/5 (fade to grey)


DISCLAIMER: spoilers
Thank you to NetGalley and Entangled Publishing for giving this ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. READ ITTTTT.
This was a well-done fantasy romance set in an Asian world, I absolutely loved the great writing style and extensive, in-depth world-building (reminded me of Spin the Dawn!). The plot was great, Shin gets involved in a game where she has 14 days to kill Emperor or he kills her (as she, the assassin/thief got caught stealing something valuable of his). Like SERIOUSLY!!!! YESSS WE LOVE THIS. She had a high-stakes mission, as her <spoiler> sister’s life was on the line </spoiler>. This book had a 1st person POV of FMC, alternating between past and present.

Tropes in this book include: <spoiler> Assassin /mark romance, enemies to, hate to, cat and mouse chase, guy falls first, one horse, slow burn, ballroom, knife to throat
angsty romance, swoon-worthy romance </spoiler>

The FMC had a badass personality and made me laugh with her vivid thoughts, and the leads witty banter made me laugh and swoon. The MMC was a sarcastic, tall dark and handsome, hot, mischievous guy (and reminded me of the MMCs from once upon a broken heart and spin the dawn).

Below are some of my favorite moments and quotes. <spoiler>FMC planned to sed Rui, and accidentally wore nightgown to dinner🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️. It worked though😏😏
When she went to his room and found his note about her🥺 and he found her and panicked 😆

"You and your crime lord
-if you desire that he return with you-will be granted passage back to Sunpo...if you manage to assassinate the Emperor of Gyeulcheon." What in the gods' names?
The wonderful hope warming my body gutters out, replaced by icy dread. I struggle to push words through my tight jaw.
"You're the Emperor of Gyeulcheon." "Yes, Reaper, I am well aware," the Pied Piper replies with a sharp, sly smile. And if you have failed to kill me by the end of the fourteenth day.. Well. I'll kill you," the Piper whispers softly. Lethally.


(Rui was the Piper and played music to compel people.)
Rui sends me a glance as he lounges on one of the floor cushions in front of the table and pours himself a cup of steaming tea. "I've been told I'm quite the musician," he says with cold laughter in his voice.
"I've been told I'm quite the assassin," I retort viciously, still trembling.
"I was told that as well, but I have to admit that, so far, I'm disappointed."

"When is your birthday?"
"The winter solstice."
The emperor's smile is a curved blade. "Would you care to bring me a gift?"
"It's only spring." My responding look is falsely saccharine. "You'll be long dead by then. But perhaps I'll give a eulogy in your honor. The starting words, I think, would be 'this bastard.' The ending words would be 'got exactly what he deserved." I violently stab my chopsticks into the mandu to punctuate my point. Rui's lips twitch, and then almost as if he tried to prevent it, he is laughing once more. I stare at him, at his eyes sparkling with amusement, </spoiler>

I love books inspired by myths and folklore and I’ve never read one based on Korean mythology before so I was really curious.
It didn’t disappoint me, the plot was super intriguing and I really liked the main character.
I hope there’ll be more books!

This book had a bit of a slow start, but stick with it friends because I do think it’s worth the read!
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Lina, a thief they call the Reaper is an assassin that has two weeks to kill a Dokkaebi emperor or be killed herself.
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What I liked:
•inspired by Korean mythology
•enemies to lovers
•forbidden love
•Pied Piper retelling
•guy falls first

I enjoyed this YA fantasy once the story got going. I didn’t like Lina’s flashbacks, they made the story confusing, but seriously, assassin verses emperor, vengeance and redemption, myths and culture, it was fun! I will definitely read on in this series.
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Thank you entangled teen and netgalley for the opportunity to read this book!

Last of the Talons is the first of a series of fantasy novels, featuring Korean gods and goddesses.

Lina is a thief known as the Reaper, Sunpo's finest assassin. She is working for her enemy, Kalmin, after he killed her entire gang, the Talons. If she doesn't help him and his gang, the Blackbloods, they will kill her little sister. Lina steals a beautiful tapestry covered in jewels from the Dokkaebi Temple, and, after dismantling and selling it, sees a Dokkaebi in the market. He steals both her and Kalmin and takes them to his realm, Gyeulcheon, and makes a deal with Lina: if she can kill him, Rui, also known as the Pied Piper, she can take Kalmin back to Sunpo and save her little sister. But given that he is a god, it is going to be close to impossible to kill him.

I will be honest - this book drags a lot in the middle. I skimmed it for a while until it caught my interest again. I think it could have used some better editing to cut down the length of the novel. But the last third of the book was great. There will be at least one more book in the series. There are some romantic elements in this book, but most is implied rather than described.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy of this book!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC, and to the author.

Unfortunately, I had to DNF the book after maybe 15% read. I like the premise of the book and I think reading rich cultural stories is important, but for some reason, this book didnt do it for me.

The main character, Lina, was not relatable and I didnt like her inner monologue. I felt like there was a lot of repetition and added to this issue, the sentences seemed too long. I felt like I was reading the same thing again and again. Lina felt like an invincible character, despite suffering from trauma and abuse. I like to see character fail and try again, until they finally succeed and her arrogance ruined that for me.

I give this book 1.5 stars, because I still think it had potential and many people could still really enjoy reading it.

Shin Lina is an assassin. Forced by her enemy to steal an expensive tapestry from a temple, Lina sets off a chain of events, resulting in a challenge from an immortal dokkaebi: murder the dokkaebi within two weeks, or forfeit her own life. Shin Lina is a good assassin, but she is only human, and it's not only her own life at stake.

For someone who's supposed to be an assassin, Shin Lina spent more time crying over the past than on planning how to murder her target. Actually, she hardly murdered anyone at all until about 70% into the book. That's a lot of emotional angst and no spilled blood. She's just a broken, mourning, young girl rather than a scary assassin.

If that's not exciting enough, this so called assassin was given two weeks to murder a dokkaebi, a super human. Known as the Pied Piper, this dokkaebi is centuries older than Shin Lina, and she ends up falling in love with him. It would be one thing, idiotic though it may be, to fall in love with one's target. But this guy isn't human and is centuries older. She's practically a teenager still. The logistics of this killed the story for me. I didn't like Shin Lina. She was emotionally broken and kept acting on irrational impulses. The combination of those traits with no redeeming factors did not endear her to me.

The Korean aspects were nice. There were Korean mythical places and dokkaebi, among some other creatures.

Maybe a younger audience would appreciate this book more. This one didn't appeal to me.

I wanted to love this book-- the premise was so interesting and I always love checking out a new-to-me author. I just really didn't believe what we were being sold about Lina, there wasn't anything that supported being considered the greatest assassin ever, which may have been intentional? But then if it was I was completely lost by the point, The romance and the love interest were also some of my more unfavored aspects of this book, but from reading other reviews it seems like a lot of people didn't necessarily dislike it as much as I ended up disliking it. I loved the mythology aspect, and honestly was pleasantly surprised by the world-building, but overall I just felt meh about the whole thing. I can absolutely see where other people would love this, though--I think it just wasn't for me!

"Death does not die." I hold my head high, shoulders back, refusing to yield. I am Shin Lina. The Reaper of Sunpo. Death incarnate. "And neither will I."

Thank you to Netgalley and Entangled Publishing for the ARC!

⚠️ Trigger Warnings ⚠️:

Death of a loved one, violence, indentured servitude, physical and emotional abuse, smoking/addiction/withdrawal, orphanedhood, drinking alcohol/hangovers, and PTSD all appear in the novel.

Synopsis:

Sophie Kim’s debut follows Shin Lina, the sole survivor of the slaughter of her gang, the Talons, who’s forced to work for the man who is responsible for their deaths in order to protect her little sister. After even given an order to steal a priceless tapestry, Lina incites the anger of the legendary Pied Piper and it must be punished with a game that might end her life. Suddenly, she is taken to a realm like no other, but Lina must figure out how to kill the Dokkaebi emperor, Haneul Rui. But as more unfolds, Lina starts to question the Dokkaebi’s intentions, as well as her own.

I have a very small list of my favourite go to authors, and Sophie Kim is definitely on this list now. This is definitely one of the best books i’ve read this year. A tale of a blood thirsty assassin against a devilishly handsome emperor, sign me up! Our main protagonist, Lina, is a powerful, headstrong, and brutally honest. This book left me rooting for Lina with every page I turned, especially learning about her trauma which ignited her desire for revenge. The beginning of the book was paced a bit slow, but after a quarter through I could not put the book down.

I could not recommend this book enough. An epic fantasy in a East Asian inspired world with a mix of dark romance, Korean mythology and magic left me wanting so much more. I advise you to pick up this book when you get the chance.

4/5⭐️

So I decided not to finish this at 20%.

I was intrigued by the plot description and I saw another review compare it to Guardian: A Great and Lonely God which is a show I adored, but even that wasn't enough for me to finish it. Aside from them being based on similar Korean lore, I didn't see the comparison and was extremely disappointed.

Lina was a frustrating and borderline annoying main character and none of the other characters appealed to me at all either. They were all dislikeable to me, even characters in Lina's flashbacks. I wanted to try and finish it at least for the sibling plot with Lina and her sister, but Lina's internal monologue was too frustrating to read about. It felt like a lot of telling instead of showing in regards to Lina's skills as an assassin and the way it was absolutely drilled in how much suffering Lina had gone through in a year and the cigarette and the sweets and the palace and the clothes, etc. were all so fancy. The reiteration wasn't needed. Maybe I'll pick this up someday and finish it to find out what happens to Lina's sister, but for now, I am okay not knowing.

I am still giving this two stars because I think it had potential in its plot and having fantasy stories based in other cultures is important and it might appeal to other people, but it wasn't for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for making this available in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you to NetGalley and Entangled Publishing for providing me with and ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This right here is my favorite type of book. There are a lot like it but they all tend to have their own charms. An amazing debut!
The writing was pretty and made the book a joy to read.
I wanted a lot, lot, lot, more from Lina but the romance was really making up for some of the issues I have with her.
I wish she had done a better job showing the readers how great she was instead of us merely being told.

Shin Lina is the last of the Talon gang and had to become a weapon for the kingdom’s most-feared crime lord to keep her little sister safe. When ordered to steal from a Dokkaebi temple, Lina begins a game against a legendary immortal. Within their realm, she can win her life if she kills Haneul Rui. Lina must be clever to outplay the king and save her sister before time runs out.

Last of the Talons is a novel that incorporates Korean mythology and stories about spirits, which Sophie Kim painstakingly researched before writing this book. She includes a great intro and where to find the originals so you can see the stories that she brought into this one; the Pied Piper name is obviously Western, but Haneul Rui is still a Korean figure and a bigger name within the fairy tales. We're still grounded in a Korean-inspired kingdom where Shin Lina is forced to work for a crime lord that managed to kill the Talons and force her to work for him. Her younger sister is that collateral and the only reason why she hasn't tried a fruitless revenge plot against them. It's also the reason why she's the one that stole a jeweled tapestry from a temple and cut it apart; for this trespass, the boss was kidnapped and essentially held for ransom. While she doesn't care about him, his second will kill Lina's sister if the boss isn't returned. This is a compelling start, and I loved seeing her mind work and how she interacted with the immortal beings of the underworld. They all have motives and emotions of their own, giving them a "human" sense as well as their otherworldly powers.

Even though I liked the sound of the book, it just didn’t give me what I wanted unfortunately. I think that it had a lot to do with execution and maybe would have been better if it wasn’t bogged down by so many things happening.

The book is told from one point-of-view and it comes from Shin Lina. She is an assassin for a gang and must do their bidding if she wants her sister to stay in good health. It’s a lot of pressure on her but she will do anything to keep her safe. Yay for sister bonds! I’m always down for that, but her sister was very much only used for that sole purpose and I really wanted to see more between them.

Lina as an assassin wasn’t it for me. I have a hard time with teens having this job in general, but it makes it even harder when they are talked up as the “greatest” assassin ever and then they fall short and start screwing up. I get that everyone has their bad days but give me something to work with here. Don’t hype up someone if they can’t live up to the expectations.

The whole romance didn’t do anything for me and it’s a real shame because it does involve tropes that I do like. I do think that other books have done it better and this one was just average. It’s not bad per say but just not to my liking. I think that others will like it though so don’t take my words to heart especially if it sounds interesting to you.

The love interesting was kind of weird. He really lived off of her trying to kill him and I’m not really sure how to take it, haha.

I did really enjoy the world-building and seeing her find her way to the emperor. Mythology retellings are always fascinating to me and I will give this author props for that! It was well done.

Overall, this wasn’t for me but it could be for you. I had some issues with it and it ultimately led me to just not being able to vibe with the story.