Review – The Bloodless Assassin (The Viper and the Urchin, Book 1) by Celine Jeanjean (3/5 Stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Steampunk/Fantasy
Length: 308 pages
Publisher: Lotus Press
Release Date: July 27, 2015
ASIN: B01074SV5Y
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in The Viper and the Urchin series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 3/5 stars
“Being Damsport’s most elegant assassin is hard work. There are devilish poisons to concoct, secret identities to maintain…and tailoring to consider. But most importantly Longinus must keep his fear of blood a secret or his reputation will be ruined.
When Rory discovers Longinus’s blood phobia, she makes him a deal. Train her, and she won’t ruin his reputation.
What she doesn’t expect is that her new master has more eccentricities than a stray dog has fleas.
And that in aligning herself with him, she now finds herself in the crosshairs of another, far more dangerous assassin.
Now, not only does Rory have to keep herself and Longinus alive, she has to stop a conspiracy that threatens to bring the city to its knees.
An impossible task?
It’s even harder with Longinus under the delusion that he’s the hero of the story. That would be funny, if it didn’t make Rory want to throttle him.”
Series Info/Source: This is the first book in The Viper and the Urchin series. Right now there are six books in this series. I borrowed this book for Kindle through Kindle Unlimited.
Story (3/5): This story starts out pretty slow, things don’t actually get moving until about 50% through the story and then the action is non-stop. This is about an assassin named the Viper and a young urchin named Rory. When Rory helps out the Viper, she finds out his most embarrassing secret. Rory ends up blackmailing the Viper; if he will train her in combat, then she will keep his secret. Things start to go sideways and Rory and the Viper end up in a plot to save the ruler of Damsport.
As I said the story started slow, but it sounded like it was going to be a bit different from your typical fantasy story. As it continued it picked up pace but turned into a more typical “save the kingdom from destruction” type of story.
Characters (3/5): I actually really disliked Rory and the Viper at the beginning of the story. Rory made some really stupid decisions that hurt her a lot. The Viper was just overly silly. As the story went on I grew to like them a bit more. Rory and the Viper are starting to develop a better working relationship by the end of the story as well. I am guessing as the series continues these characters will grow and become a bit more likable. However, for now I could have taken or left them.
Setting (4/5): The story takes place in Damsport, a pretty typical fantasy-like city with some steampunk vibes. There is a little effort made to place Damsport in the broader world and give it some history. I enjoyed the city and the steampunk overtones, but hope the rest of the world is built out better in future books.
Writing Style (3/5): The writing here is okay. It’s easy to read and fairly engaging but the pacing could use some work. I almost stopped reading it because the beginning was so slow, then a ton of things happened in the last half of the book. Hopefully, Jeanjean learned from this book and makes the pacing more consistent in later books in the series.
My Summary (3/5): Overall this was an okay steampunk fantasy read. I thought the first part was boring and didn’t really like the characters, but as things progressed the characters started to grow on me and I got more interested in the world. I am unsure right now if I will continue with this series. I have some other series I want to read first, but if I start thinking about this one again I might go pick up the 2nd book later.
