★★★

The Chronicles of Ghadid: Book I

There’s been a lot of talk about The Perfect Assassin, the first book in K.A. Doore’s new Middle Eastern flavoured fantasy series. It has won well-deserved praise for its setting, which takes readers beyond the standard white European semi-medieval tropes of fantasy fiction, and also for its diversity in including characters with a wide range of sexualities, including an asexual hero. The world-building is tantalising, both in terms of the physical space of the city of Ghadid, and in the metaphysical workings of the story. Now, anyone who remembers my posts on Robin Hobb will know that I have a soft spot for stories about assassins, so I should have loved this book, as so many other readers have. Unfortunately, though, I was never quite able to lose myself in the story. Ironically, for a tale about assassins and murder, I found it a little bloodless.

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