Book Review
Title: A Broken Blade by Melissa Blair (The Halfling Saga Book 1)
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Rating: 4.5 Stars
The opening of A Broken Blade introduces us to Keera, the King’s Blade and royal assassin, however, Keera like the Shades is a halfling. In this world, there are mortals, fae and elves, the elves were driven extinct by the King leaving only the fae and the mortals. The fae are split into light and dark fae, the light fae are also gone and the King has a treaty with the dark fae driving them back into the faelands. Keera is a halfling that means she is part elf and part mortal and these are useful weapons to the King since they have enhanced senses and abilities that mortals don’t. Keera is forced to do a lot of bad things in service of the King but she does her best to help others especially younger halflings so they might have the chance of living a normal life which is where her friendship with Victoria comes in. However, Keera’s position is under threat because she has a drinking problem that other people are beginning to notice. She now has two new missions, one being to ensure Lord Curringham’s loyalty lies with the King since there are rumours of his making pacts with the dark fae and the second is to hunt down a criminal known only as the Shadow.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, Keera is able to learn that Lord Curringham isn’t working with the dark fae and isn’t planning to anytime soon given his feelings. She thinks her trip was wasted when she realises one of Curringham’s servants is working with the Shadow and after keeping her eyes and ears open she is able to relay a message to him about having a rematch since they have battled once before. She wasn’t expected the Shadow to show up but he does and the pair fight, Keera should have the advantage but she is quite drunk during the fight so they are evenly matched which irritates her. During the fight, the Shadow is able to remove Keera’s hood and see her face and something about her stops him and prompts him to kiss her and in response she tries to stab him before he flees. Keera has once again lost the Shadow but no one knows this time so she keeps it a secret but when she returns and learns the King is planning the trials for more Shades, Keera is furious. Most training to become Shade do so for decades before taking the trials but the King has lessened that to only 8 years because of the Shadow. Keera is heading off to the Faelands in order to find the Shadow and kill him to protect others like her.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, Keera reports back to the King and relays her suspicions that the Shadow is a dark fae or an elf which means he could be retreating back to the Faelands and he gives her permission to travel there in order to find him but it violates the treaty so she will be truly alone. Prince Killian seems nice unlike his brother Damien who is responsible for the scars on Keera’s back and even gives her a book on elven and fae history to aid her when she arrives. With the threat of death hanging over her Keera enters the Faelands but Lord Feron is aware of her immediately and invites her to the royal palace for dinner. There Keera finds Feron to be a kind and generous host with no intentions to kill her or do her harm but she does learn the King is hiding a secret he would kill to keep hidden. Keera is beginning to question whether or not the fae are her enemies despite them being the King’s enemy and she is finding that she enjoys the company of these people even if she isn’t used to it because all halflings, elf and fae are treated fairly here.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, Keera is on her way to ask Nikolai as she thinks he might know who the Shadow is as she needs to make an alliance if she wants to take down the King. There she finds the Shadow waiting for her thinking she is going to kill Nik, the duel is half-hearted on both side but Keera gets the upper hand and learns the Shadow is Riven, Feron’s nephew. She immediately assumes the dark fae are moving against the crown but Riven shuts this idea down as the rebellion is being mainly led by halflings like herself. Keera offers to help but Riven has to consult others before he agrees, while he has Keera followed she manages to give them the slip and follow Riven’s scouts to exactly where he is having a meeting with Nik and Syrra, the other two leaders. Riven doesn’t want the alliance but he understands that they need Keera while Syrra wants to kill her. After hearing their plan, Keera literally breaks in through a window and announces her entrance much to Nik’s delight and their alliance is off to an ok start. However, she and Riven both realise they can’t be allies if they can’t trust each other and they agree to share only what the other needs to know about them to make the alliance work and Keera offers up some useful information since Riven’s is outdated.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, Keera realises that her second in command is close by probably looking for her so the group decide to lead her away from the Faelands. As the begin to move ahead, we can see that the group doesn’t really trust each other at all since they are fighting over the smallest decisions because they can’t agree. When they successful lead the Dagger away, Keera is forced into a situation where Riven’s people lashed out at the Shades, killing one and taking another hostage. Keera arrives to stop them but realises that the girl has to die and makes Riven do it since it is his lax leadership that created the situation. After this, Keera drowns herself in drink even though she has been sober for over a month and surprisingly it is Syrra there to pick her up since she understands the weight that Keera is carrying around with her. After this, Keera and Riven come to blows and she briefly touches on some of the things she has been through like rescuing and smuggling the Halflings out along the Rose Road which she founded and he wasn’t aware she has always been on their side despite what she is forced to do.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, the group is working better than ever and they decide the best way to hurt the crown without a direct attack is to cut off their supplies. Keera knows that the crown is shipping more of their reserves out to the mortal lands and won’t have enough for themselves giving them the upper hand and they decide the best way is to blow up the dam and flood the supply route but in order to do that they need to key around Lord Curringham’s neck. With the Harvest ball approaching, Keera and Riven decide to not so subtly sneak in and use a diversion to get the key but one of the Princes is at the ball, luckily it is Killian but he seems to have a thing for Keera despite only meeting her a handful of times. This is a headache for Keera who has budding feelings for Riven which isn’t helped by the connection between them but they manage to get what they need. However, Killian being at the ball meant Keera had to reveal herself and tell him some half truths in order for him not to suspect her of betraying the crown. This pushes up their timeline for blowing the dam and they work day and night to get their before the Shades. Their diversion works and Keera manages to incapacitate the Shades, but she misses one who shoots an arrow into Nik’s leg. While Syrra takes Nik to a healer, Riven and Keera light the explosives but Keera’s fuse dies out, she has to go back to relight but it barely gives her enough time to escape the blast but she doesn’t escape uninjured.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, Riven gets Keera to a healer where she learns that she has a lot of Fae blood in her, possibly born to a Fae and a Halfling. The healer also believes that Keera has a healing abilities which Riven saw for himself after the explosion, the healer also believes she is Light Fae which seems impossible since they died out a long time ago but that might not be the case. Keera has to return to the city for a meeting with the King which goes even better than planned thanks to Killian covering for her. Keera isn’t happy about this though since she doesn’t know what Killian is up to and it sets her on edge. However, returning to Riven seems to stop her anxiety for now especially since they have confessed their feelings to each other. In the final pages, Keera is kidnapped by Nik and presented before Killian, it turns out they have been working together since the beginning and Riven was his Shadow. While Keera feels a little betrayed she can’t judge them for that since Killian claims to want to destruction of the crown too and Keera makes the choice to trust the people she has come to see as her friends. Overall, A Broken Blade was an action packed start to this series and I can’t wait to see what happens in A Shadow Crown.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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