Shadowblade by Anna Kashina

Shadowblade by Anna Kashina starts off with all the elements that I know I'll love. We meet Naia, a young orphan with astounding martial skills, who is trained up in an order of assassins. We have shadowy puppet masters who are angling to topple an imperial despot. We have a mystery surrounding Naia's birth that is absolutely delicious when she is tasked with taking on a role in a conspiracy to challenge the succession. Machiavellian skullduggery meets fast-paced action. I should have been in my happy place.

I'd say that this book *almost* nails it, but the pacing is just that little bit off. I was deeply invested in seeing Naia as she undergoes her training, yet part of this feels glossed over to where we get her embarking on her first, important mission. A too-obvious, too-easy romance liaison gets tossed in, with repercussions I called the moment we first hit the bedroom, but perhaps the thing that kinda made the entire novel fall a little flat for me was when the antagonist's identity was revealed far too early. And that, for me, made me feel as if we missed out on much of the tension. Not once did I fear that my protagonists would succeed – and I would have liked to have had more of a sense of impending doom.

The setting, in the second half of the novel, that takes place in an imperial palace, is a stage set that is ripe for a more complex treatment – especially if we could see the introduction of more opposing factions, but I feel that this last part of the story gets rushed. I feel with a little careful planning, this could easily have been a very satisfying duology or trilogy, as there is so much material to mine in the setting. Is this still an entertaining read? I'd say yes. This is not the first of Kashina's novels that I've enjoyed, but this one's just not quite the five-star read I was hoping for. But it's still good. It has its moments, and what Kashina does well is write excellent fight scenes involving characters who are likeable and relatable.