As the book continues, though, and we learn more about Sal, it starts to make more sense. Sal’s spur-of-the-moment decision to try out for a role as royal assassin might seem strange to those of us who are just meeting them. Instead we start with Sal, embittered by the slaughter of their family and countrypeople by the shadows.
That in and of itself might have been an epic story to tell, but for whatever reason, Miller didn’t choose to start there. It’s about a decade since Marianna da Ignasi kicked the shadows out of the world by getting rid of all magic. In this case, the Big Bad are the shadows that infiltrated this world. One of the central elements of Mask of Shadows is a trope I really enjoy and one I’ve built into my own eternally-WIP fantasy novel: the story takes place after the Big Bad is vanquished. They view the assassin position as a chance to align themselves with the queen who ended that war and drove back the shadows-but by getting involved in nation-level politics, Sal might have bitten off more than they can chew. Sal is a thief and one of the few survivors of a massacre that wiped out almost all of their countrypeople.
Linsey Miller’s debut novel features a genderfluid protagonist trying to become the next assassin to the queen. Mask of Shadows was just some random fantasy novel I requested on NetGalley in exchange for a review, and then I started hearing all about it elsewhere.
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