James is skilled, efficient, and deadly, a hired blade navigating the shifting alliances of a deteriorating Assassin’s Guild. Then he meets Thalia, an alluring but troubled dancing girl who offers him a way out—if he’ll help her kill a powerful nobleman. With the Guild falling apart, it just might be worth the risk. But when you live, breathe, and love in a world that’s forever flirting with death, the slightest misstep can be poison.
Poison dance is approximately 14,000 words, or 54 printed pages.
Poison Dance is a short novella that acts as a prequel to Livia Blackburne's upcoming novel, Midnight Thief, which will be published next year by Disney-Hyperion. This novella introduces you to an amazing world of assassins, thieves, gypsy caravans, and not-so-noble noblemen. It also acts as a back story to a key supporting character of Midnight Thief, the skilled assassin named James.
What I enjoyed most about this novella was the world building - Ms. Blackburne is very skilled at creating a setting that has an aura of mystery and intrigue, and the fact that she was able to suck me into this world so completely, in only 54 pages, really makes me excited to see what will be coming up in Midnight Thief. I liked the idea of an assassin's guild that was falling apart at the death of it's leader, and that there was a power struggle occurring within the guild over who would lead next. It was interesting to read about how the guild had once been highly influential and thought of with awe, but had now been reduced to petty thievery and taking odd-jobs from the noblemen for extra cash, and I'd like to see if the guild has developed by the time the next book is released.
The only issue I had was that I didn't feel any attachment to the characters. This may be because it was so short, but I really didn't see any actual substance to the relationship between James and Thalia, and I would have liked to have read more about James and his relationship to the other guild members as well. Still, this novella did what it was supposed to do, which was to get me wanting to continue reading. I'm looking forward to the release of Midnight Thief even more than I was before I had read this novella, and I'm hoping that Ms. Blackburne delves deeper into the relationships of her characters in the full-length novel.
A Prequel To:
Expected Publication:
July 2014 by Disney-Hyperion
From December 11-14th, the Poison Dance ebook is on sale for .99 cents as part of the Fantasy Romance Holiday Promotion.
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** DISCLAIMER: I received my review copy of Poison Dance free of charge from the author in exchange for an honest review **
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