Review: The Assassins of Tamurin by S.D. Tower

At the age of eleven, Lale is cast out from the village where she grew up, but has never really belonged. She is accepted into a mysterious school for orphaned girls where she is trained in housekeeping, arts, comportment... and spycraft? Interesting. Eventually, Lale is sent out on a mission that will shake her faith in everything she's been raised to believe, leaving her to decide for herself who the bad guys really are... and who she is going to be.

I read this book through twice, which is not normally something I do. I love this story. The tension between who Lale was born, who she's been molded as, and who she will choose to become is something I think everyone can relate to. There's intrigue, action, romance and intricate plotting. The book is narrated in the first person from the perspective of some years after the events in the book take place, which leads to lots of cryptic comments about what's happening and what it means. The first time I read the book, they drove me crazy trying to figure out what was going on. The second time through, they really added to the sinister tones of what I knew was happening. Well-crafted and absorbing, this book is a great read. I would recommend it to lovers of fantasy, as well as others who are looking to test out the genre.

An interesting fact about this book - the author's name, S.D. Tower, is actually an alias for another author. The book cover says, "S. D. Tower lives in Canada and is an artist and the internationally published author (under another name) of espionage thrillers." I really wish I knew who it was, and I hope they write more books like this one.