In the face of the negative reviews here, I actually thought this was a fun book. Maybe not what was expected based on the title and the summary, but I still enjoyed my time with it. Flawed? Sure, but I still enjoyed reading it, and I think that's what counts.

Girton Club-Foot is an assassin apprentice who learns under his master Merela who rescued him from being sold into slavery as a child. There's an heir to the throne that's being threatened, and Merela and Girton are tasked with uncovering the plot to kill the heir without revealing what they do. Despite the summary it's not an action-packed book--by merit of growing up under Merela's tutelage, Girton hasn't had much of a childhood, and much of the book is him integrating with other young squires, making friends (and enemies), and otherwise enjoying the joys of being young. Merela cautions him repeatedly to maintain a distance between himself and the other boys, but Girton doesn't listen, for better or worse. While living his best life, Girton also finds time to investigate the castle for potential murder suspects, and we get a bit of a murder mystery twist reveal at the end that's satisfying.

So I thought this was a fun read (or, listen, I guess, since I listened to the audiobook), but it's definitely not action-packed. There's some fight scenes (rather gruesome sometimes), and there's definite plot development, but it's not the cloak-and-dagger, stealthy, super assassin type of plot development. More of a coming-of-age medieval story while also being a great fighter (and maybe more?). The author's writing style is fantastic though, I sort of loved the cliffhanger statements he built into his writing that readies you for something awesome to happen in the next scene, and the epilogue really has me interested to see where the story goes. There's lots of untapped world potential here, like the magic system that was brought up but not fully explored as to what it means for Girton, and some other loose threads that weren't satisfyingly tied up. I look forward to the next book to read more!