Book Babblings

Dark Triumph by R.L. LaFevers


The Nitty Gritty: Dark Triumph lives up to its name. This second installment takes us down a dark and treacherous path from the sweet love story that Grave Mercy gave us.

Finally we get to hear Sybella's side of the story. She was a mysterious figure in Grave Mercy. A wise choice on LaFevers part because I believe she is a better character than Ismae could ever hope to be.

Anywho, Sybella is undercover in the d'Albret household. The place that almost drove her insane. Between her father's savagery and her brother's unholy love obsession she is dancing on the knife's edge every day of her life.

Sybella is asked to risk everything to save a prized prisoner in her father's dungeon. The journey she embarks after the jail break will redefine her life and her reason for living. If she survives that long.


Opening Line: "I did not arrive at the convent of Saint Mortain some green stippling."

What's the 411: Dark Triumph, the second novel in the His Fair Assassin series, is the book Grave Mercy should have been. In Grave Mercy, as the reader you are dismayed to learn that the assassin convent of nuns isn’t the wielders of espionage, murder, and mayhem as much as purveyors of forbidden romance and courtesan intrigue. I wanted more murder and mayhem to be quite honest. Maybe that is just me though.

Baring that the backdrop of Anne of Brittany’s attempts to keep her duchy independent and out of French hands resonated with this admitted neophyte to historical fiction genre. Frankly I only picked up Grave Mercy because of one the cover and two the aspect of learning about the spawn of Death. It was a intriguing concept.

In Dark Triumph, we find Sybella trapped in the household of Count d.Albret, the brute of a man that threatened the virtue of young Anne in Grave Mercy. In disgrace and anger he lays siege to her home and the surrounding town. After his thirst for blood is sated with the slaughter of the palace attendants of loyal to Duchess Ann he begins to plot against the young monarch. Sybella thwarts him at every turn, going as far as to rescue his prize prisoner, the Beast of Waroch, from his very dungeons. It is in the darkest places that we are finally introduced to a protagonist we can love and begin to root for. All the while d’Albret looms large as this brutal, yet untouchable, villain.

The Good: Sybella is a very different character from predecessor. Not only does Sybella not have any qualms or hesitation about killing, she revels in it. She finds a kindred spirit in the Beast in this aspect. Though Sybella is extremely good at her job, rather than mindless violence, Sybella going up against the French and d’Albret’s men serves two purposes; one, it shows how Sybella, and her entire family, have been tainted by d’Albret’s cruelty, and it strikes us with a question of theology and faith. We are left trying to ascertain the true purpose of Saint Mortain, his marks, his children, and whether the Abbess is truly serving him or her own agenda. For it seems the Abbess is utterly ignorant on the divine purpose and ways of the old god.

Grave Mercy tried to explore these issues as well, but d’Albret as seen through Ismae’s eyes, is at most, the mustache twirling villain tying young damsels to train tracks. Nothing like the terrifying and vile d’Albret we are shown in Dark Triumph, and Ismae’s realizations about Mortain seem almost trite in comparison to what Sybella discovers, and how that finally puts her and her relationship with her surrogate family in perspective.

It’s the perspective on Sybella and her family that really forms my appreciation for Dark Triumph. Julian was always a hard character to connect with. Especially since his motives from the beginning of the book were quite ambiguous. The incest notwithstanding, in the end I’m impressed LaFevers allowed Julian to be the tragic hero who showed the depths of d’Albret’s depravity. I think all of the d'Albret children were extensions of their father. Sybella was just able to see the good in the evil that her adoptive father had tainted her with.

Overall though, Dark Triumph is a book that, as its title suggests, is far darker than its predecessor, but in a way that uses that darkness to create some incredibly compelling characters. It’s not a book without flaws, and probably requires a degree of patience, but it certainly delivers, both in terms of action and character arcs.

I am seriously digging the fact that these girls are really starting to question the Abbess. I never trusted her from day one. She is too secretive and manipulative for my tastes. Yes she is a dealer of death, but she shouldn't be that way with her people and her girls. If you can't trust the ones you go to sleep with then who can you trust. Its not like she has a reason to hide things from them if they are working in the god's will. I feel the Abbess is going to be unveiled as the viper she really is.

Sybella has a strong, clear voice in this novel. She doesn't quiffle over every little thing. On the outside she is a hardened courtier playing with the emotions of men for political gain for her father. Her wit and tongue are sharper than the knives up her sleeves. Girls want to be her and men would die to be with her (pun intended). She is a woman that knows what she is. We may not think of her as a good person, but she is a great characters. Her development from Grave Mercy and then from the beginning of Dark Triumph to the end of the book is a fabulous read. She almost threatened to tear my attention away from Ismae in Grave Mercy.

Sybella's and Beast's relationship is more believable in this tale. The natural progression for rescuer to lover makes sense to me. It isn't a love at first sight or even a love after we fight for no reason but just to fight. Its a real life love that is built on a mutual love of blood and carnage. Both Sybell and Beast are people that excel and revival in killing, its the first thing they notice about each other and I dare say the first thing they fall in love with. Its unconventional and I love it. Love stories are so trite and overdone that I avoid them like turkey bacon, but this is a love story that I can read over and over again.

The Bad: There weren't a lot of things that I could find wrong with this book. I went into it knowing I wasn't a huge fan of Grave Mercy, but I read it because it was Sybella's story. I will say that I sort of feel that if you have characters that are so defined by their past that we need at least a few flashbacks. Granted d'Albret is cruel enough in the present for us to get a feel for how disgusting he was in his younger years, but I feel that we could delve deeper into Sybella's mind if we could see a little more of her before she was taken in by the god of Death.

My Hopes for the Series: I really hope that LaFevers puts the development she put in Sybella into Annith. I think LaFevers has worked out her author jitters and the third book should be her best if this trend keeps up. I hope the Abbess gets her comeuppance

My Final Say: Dark Triumph erases the bad taste of Grave Mercy from your mouth.