Book Review: Death Sworn by Leah Cypess

Book: Death Sworn by Leah Cypess
Genre: YA Fantasy
Rating:★ ★ ★ ★ ★
For: Review
From: Edelweiss

Another book were I went in expecting nothing in particular and I came out wanting more! Ah, now the wait for book two! (I'm assuming there's a book two, because there's much much more to this story!)

The whole story all takes place in a massive underground cave where all the assassins live. Ileni, a powerful young sorceress comes here to teach these boys magic and to find out who killed her predecessors. The problem is, she is losing her own magic, a secret she must keep from them or they'll just simply kill her. It also makes it hard to solve the mystery!

The sorcerers and the assassins in this interesting world have a sort of truce, and one common goal... to bring down the Empire. This Empire... we didn't learn much about. I'm thinking that's coming in the next book! All we know is these other two groups feel very oppressed by this entity and they want them to fall and they've been working on it for hundreds of years.

It's a bit of a dark tale with all the talk of killing and such. But we learn that these really scary boys are actually kind of nice (especially one of them) and very cool too. When Ileni learns what happened to her predecessors, the plot thickens and her whole purpose is turned on its head.

Loved this book! Much sneaking around, cool fight scenes, a dark and mysterious boy, a powerful girl, a scary setting, a creepy old master. Not to mention the awesome writing. I want to write like this! I read this book in nearly one sitting and dang... I don't have that kind of time right now!

Bottom line: A new-to-me author that is now on my must-read list. I can't wait for the next book!

Other Reviews:

I loved that there was so much suspense in this novel along with the action. Ileni's trying to track down a killer, and watching her get closer and closer to her goal made me read this book all in one go. From City of Books

Ileni rocks this story with her courage and determination to uncover century old mysteries! From Bewitched Bookworms

The story in this book is pretty amazing. And I loved reading about it. It was exciting and mysterious and just all kinds of awesome. From Carina's Books

But what Death Sworn is lacking in world-building, it more than makes up for with a twisty-turny plot and engaging characters. From Great Imaginatons