#death sworn

Star Rating: **** (4/5 Stars)

Death Sworn surprised me with how good it was.  I expected a story about a girl sent to teach a bunch of assassins magic, probably some kind of steamy love story, and her inevitable realization that the assassins are Good People, no, really.  I am pleased to report that I was wrong.

Ileni is a seventeen-year-old sorceress whose skill is unsurpassed but whose magic is waning, sent to teach a community of deadly assassins how to use sorcery.  She is terrified of her students, and believes strongly that they are terrible, unprincipled murderers.  Leah Cypress does an excellent job of writing Ileni as a resourceful and practical young woman, who stands by her basic principles even as her world crumbles around her.  Her main weapon in a cave full of danger is her quick thinking, and she uses it to her best advantage.

Dear readers, you may know of my hatred for extraneous love stories.  Death Sworn contains one of the only romantic subplots I have actually liked in recent YA lit.  It advanced the story, was written well, and enhanced the characters rather than making them less believable.  I loved the way Cypress left it at the end of the book, too.  

Who will like this book?  Lovers of smart female protagonists, lovers of ambiguously ethical assassins, lovers of good Fantasy YA, lovers of interesting magical systems.

Death Sworn will be out in March, 2014.