Review - Nevernight

I don't usually read back-to-back books by the same author (see also: Why I Am Bad at Finishing Series) and at first didn't make the connection between the author of this and the co-author of Illuminae.

D'oh.

Anyways. Mia is 16 years old and lives in the city of Godsgrave. A fledgling assassin, she joins a school to learn how to become the Blade that will take revenge for her father's death and her family's ruin.

Mia has to best her fellow students in contests of blades, poison, secrets and the ~subtle arts~~ in order to take her revenge.

As she navigates Tric, The Boy, the school with its own built-in Mia-haters, and friendship, Mia grows into who she is meant  to be.

Listen, this is the girl assassin book I have been waiting for since I fell down the fantasy hole when I was 14. I was 14 in the 80s. Do you know how many girl assassin fantasy novels there were in the 80s? NONE. At least, none that I could FIND.

So I was predisposed to like Nevernight anyway. And THEN Jay Kristoff layers on this Roman Empire-style universe AND THEN ON TOP OF THAT gives the Red Church layers on layers of history and ceremony and the whole thing adds up to basically catnip.

CATNIP.