Royal Assassin

Above 3⭐️ but not quite 3.5.

As with book one, I loved the characters and the world building, as well as where the story went ultimately.

But there are two reasons why I gave this book lower rating than the first one.

#1 The plot with Molly nearly drove me to roll my eyes out of my head. I don't like Molly - she is whiny, inconsiderate and selfish, and this thing with her was way too over the top melodramatic.

#2 The stupidity of the king and the king's people. A king must think of his people first and foremost. Before family and comfort. Nearly all that the Six Duchies went through could've been avoided if someone had taken the measures to stop Regal (by all means necessary) and I am sorry, but you have to be a halfwit to not see his game. Even Fool admitted as much, when he implied that Regal was doing all this to avenge his mother. So you mean to tell me that all this time you knew and didn't think to mention this to Chade or Shrewd? And speaking of Chade, he kept on yapping about the duty of the king's men, but forgot the most important one - to give sound advise and to warn his king when said king is endangering his people and one of his sons - the future king, because his other son is his favorite... All the big heads spent 80% of the book trying to convince Fitz that he doesn't know enough and the last 20% discovering what he was saying from the beginning was actually true. And don't get me wrong, I have no issue with characters being stupid, I just don't like it when they do, yet the author is trying to convince me it's otherwise. There is unavoidable suffering and there is unnecessary suffering. And, sadly, I am afraid there was quite a lot of the latter in this book.