A Broken Blade by Melissa Blair

My Rating: 🟊🟊🟊🟊🟊

Spice Rating:  🫑

Blurb:

Keera is a killer. As the King’s Blade, she is the most talented spy in the kingdom. And the King’s favored assassin. When a mysterious figure called the Shadow starts making moves against the Crown, Keera is forced to hunt the masked menace down.

She crosses into the magical lands of the Fae, trying to discern if her enemy is Mortal, Elf, or a Halfling like her. But the Faeland is not what it seems, and neither is the Shadow. Keera is shocked by what she discovers and can’t help but wonder who her enemy truly is…

The King that destroyed her people? The Prince that tortures them? Or the Shadow that threatens her place at court?

As she searches for answers, Keera is haunted by a promise she made long ago. A promise not only to save herself but an entire kingdom.

My Review:

I went in blind. A recommendation from a friend in book club, the promise of fantasy, maybe some romance, and I thought I knew what I was walking into. I did not. I was not even close.

This is fantasy first, romance second, and plot absolutely everywhere. The story grabs you and does not let go, and by the time I finished I was rushing headfirst into the next book without stopping to breathe. That is not a choice, that is a compulsion. This series creates compulsion.

Can we also talk about these covers for a moment? Because they are stunning. The kind of beautiful that does not fully translate on a screen, you need to hold one in your hands to truly understand.

But the heart of this book is Keera. She is messy and broken and achingly real, carrying addictions and traumas that never feel like plot devices, they feel like weight. The kind of weight a real person carries. I felt everything she felt, and there were moments it physically hurt my chest to read. That is rare. That is the kind of character writing that stays with you long after the last page.

The rest of the cast? Full of people you will question, distrust, and despise, and you will love every complicated second of it. I finished this book genuinely unsure who I was rooting for, and honestly? I might still be figuring that out.

If you want a series that burrows into you and refuses to leave, characters so human they make your heart ache, a plot so full of twists it gives you anxiety about the next book, this is it. This book has everything.