Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone-and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra-can save them. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue.

She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. Riley and the “Injun princess,” as she is repeatedly dubbed, make reasonably resourceful protagonists, but the scary, casually murderous Garrick really steals the show.Ī ghoulish thriller: melodramatic and tongue-in-cheek, sometimes both at once.Īdventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.Įlisa-Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle-has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. The chase hurtles along through washes of gore and less wholesome substances to a massively explosive resolution. The plot moves back and forth between modern times and 1898 London (or an alternate, as in his lurid descriptions of the city’s festering stews the author makes several seemingly offhand references to “slum cannibals”). He now has modern memories and a new, horrifying agenda that requires the Timekey Chevie carries around her neck. Their purpose? Simply to stay alive, as a secret device that opens wormholes between past and present but sometimes causes weird mutations in those who use it has turned Garrick into a shape-changing supergenius. She hooks up with Riley, a 19th-century lad trained in the killing arts by Victorian-era master assassin/stage magician Albert Garrick.

Colfer opens a new series that promises to be every bit as brisk and violent as Artemis Fowl-this one featuring travelers using steampunk-style time machines for (usually) evil purposes.Ĭhevron Savano is a teenager of Shawnee descent trained as an FBI agent in an ill-fated anti-terrorist program (and named, as it turns out, for a gas station).

The Reluctant Assassin by Eoin Colfer