Review: More like 4 1/2 stars...
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 31, 2009
Meli Galdes is ready to retire. She's dedicated her life to her family as an assassin and kinsmen, using her genetically enhanced skills as a melder. Her world is a tough one, where greed and power go hand in hand with the abilities of the kinsmen. Her family has one last request of Meli, however, one that will send her back into her past memories. Can Meli kill Celino Carvanna, the man who broke her heart and set her on her current course?Ilona Andrews crafts a darkly alluring world in which death and assassination are merely par for the course in the business world. I wasn't sure how I'd like such a bleak and harsh world, but Ilona Andrews does a marvelous job at pitting the characters against their world. Meli and Celino have fought their own inner demons and sought to find their own ways in a world where the family decides everything. It's hard not to admire those traits in them, even as their mindset about killing is so foreign to me.SILENT BLADE is an unusual story. Ilona Andrews takes a seemingly unlikable world and concept and makes it both sensuous and likable. I can only hope that this is the start of a series as I want to see more of the world of the kinsmen! Highly recommended!COURTESY OF CK2S KWIPS AND KRITIQUES