Assassins: Discord by Erica Cameron Series: Assassins
Published by Riptide Publishing on 9/5/16
Genres: Young Adult, Action & Adventure, LGBTQ+
Pages: 411
Source: The Publisher
My content rating: YA (Lots of violence, Nothing more than kissing)
My rating:
Kindra’s moral compass has never pointed north, but that’s what happens when you’re raised as an assassin and a thief. At sixteen, she’s fantastic with a blade, an expert at slipping through the world unnoticed, and trapped in a life she didn’t chose. But nothing in her training prepares her for what happens when her father misses a target.
In the week-long aftermath, Kindra breaks ranks for the first time in her life. She steals documents, starts questioning who their client is and why the target needs to die, botches a second hit on her father’s target, and is nearly killed. And that’s before she’s kidnapped by a green-eyed stranger connected to a part of her childhood she’d almost forgotten.
Kindra has to decide who to trust and which side of the battle to fight for. She has to do it fast and she has to be right, because the wrong choice will kill her just when she’s finally found something worth living for.
Click here to Purchase the book at Riptide
Assassins: Discord follows Kindra, a teenage girl who’s been raised as an assassin. Yeah, I know this sounds a tad bit far-fetched, but I was able to suspend disbelief for the most part—I mean, it’s not that much stranger than crime families who raise their kids to be in the “business,” right? If mom and dad are both assassins, it seems logical that they’d train up the kids to be a part of the action.
Kindra has learned never to question the job, but when things go wrong with her family’s latest hit, she can’t help but wonder why all the details don’t seem to add up. And one question leads to another until Kindra is finding cracks everywhere in the foundation of her life. Once she starts looking too closely, she may not be able to go back to blissful ignorance.
What Fed My Addiction:
- Morally gray MC. Those of you who are fans of books with a main character who skirts that line between the light and the dark will LOVE Kindra. After all, she’s an assassin. And she’s not exactly unwilling. Kindra has been raised in a family of assassins and she’s been taught that you don’t question the job. You don’t think about the moral implications of what you’re doing—you just do what you need to do to get paid. Even when Kindra starts questioning that, she’s not necessarily against doing what needs to be done. Her own survival comes first, even when there might be innocents caught in the crossfire. (Old habits die hard.) But even though Kindra has some definite character flaws, I never found her unlikable. I could see how she was a product of her environment and how she often felt driven into a corner she couldn’t escape—without the use of weapons.
- Trust and Betrayals. This is the type of book where the main character doesn’t know who she can trust. Kindra has spent her life depending on her family to back her up on the job, but can she truly trust them or will they sell her out if necessary? She’s never really felt love or devotion, only dedication to the task. And now Kindra has found herself in a situation where she has to decide to put her life in other people’s hands. Not only that, but she starts to have feelings for these people and she realizes that there might be more to life than the next mission. But things are complicated, and Kindra can’t just jump into putting her faith into others—and she discovers that her life has been filled with more betrayals than she ever knew and that secrets lurk around every corner.
What Left Me Hungry for More:
- Too much action? (For me) This type of action/thriller isn’t my typical style of read, and I have to confess that I sometimes tend to get bored with long action scenes. If you love actiony spy books, this will be right up your alley, but I sometimes wanted to get past the shooting and bombs exploding and get back to the hearts of the characters. That’s just me.
- Forced diversity? Okay, this is one of those cases where I almost feel bad for mentioning it because I am a white hetero female who gets plenty of representation in books, but the LGBTQA diversity in this book felt just a little forced to me. I was happy for a main character who was bi, but then there were LOTS of other random orientations that almost felt thrown in – three gay/lesbian characters, an asexual character and an intersex character. It seemed awfully coincidental to me that so many sexual orientations turned up in this relatively small group of randomly assorted people. Still, I guess better to over-represent than under-represent?
Fans of action thrillers will find plenty to love about Assassins: Discord. Likewise, so will LGBT readers looking for a little excitement and variety in their reading. If I was more of a fan of the genre, I think I would have loved this book even more, but the book still gets an easy 3.5/5 stars.
***Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***
DISCORD Playlist
Some authors curate a playlist while they’re writing, setting moods for particular scenes. That is definitely not me. However, once I’m done with a draft—or at least after the world and the characters have been in my head for a while—songs start to remind me of the book. Once that happens, I collect the songs into a playlist. In no particular order, here are a baker’s dozen of songs that ended up on the DISCORD playlist. You can view the whole list and my others by visiting my Spotify profile.
One Way Or Another – Until the Ribbon Breaks
Fairly Local – Twenty One Pilots
Allies – Mutemath
Waiting for the End – Linkin Park
Hush – HELLYEAH
Gone Too Long – Churchill
Shadow of Doubt – Bonnie Raitt
Us & Ourselves – Morning Parade
Persona – Blue Man Group
Consider This – Anna Nalick
Lights Out – Breaking Benjamin
Love the Way You Hate Me – Like a Storm
Skeletons – Heartist
About the Author:
After a lifelong obsession with books, Erica Cameron spent her college years getting credit for reading and learning how to make stories of her own. Erica graduated with a double major in psychology and creative writing from Florida State University and began pursuing a career as an author.
Erica is many things but most notably the following: writer, reader, editor, dance fan, choreographer, singer, lover of musical theater, movie obsessed, sucker for romance, ex-Florida resident, and quasi-recluse. She loves the beach but hates the heat, has equal passion for the art of Salvador Dali and Venetian Carnival masks, has a penchant for unique jewelry and sun/moon décor pieces, and a desire to travel the entire world on a cruise ship. Or a private yacht. You know, whatever works.
To celebrate the release of Assassins: Discord, one lucky winner will receive $30 in Riptide Publishing credit! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on September 10, 2016. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!
Related Posts
9 responses to “Assassins: Discord by Erica Cameron – Review, Author Playlist & Giveaway”
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Sometimes too much action makes for a stressful read for me, but at the same time, I’d imagined you flew through this book because of it. I supposed it would appear as if the author tried too hard incorporating diversity in abundance but I can’t judge until I actually read the book. I guess it depends. Whenever I pick up a book about a gay character, I expect them to be surrounded by gay and hetero characters alike. But yeah. Reserving judgment. Lol. I like the sound of this book, tho.
Yes, I definitely would expect a gay character to have friends who are gay – and of course a love interest – but that wasn’t the case here. These were all people brought together by chance (or by association through the case they were working on): someone in a rival assassin family, the FBI agent’s son, an ex-military guy working with them, a major character’s sibling. It seemed a little too coincidental, which made it feel forced to me. But this was a small thing that wasn’t a major hang-up for the book – just something that gave me pause.
I appreciate the review!
vitajex(at)aol(Dot)com
I feel the same about long action scenes but I love dark assassin characters so its going on my TBR!
If you’re a fan of that type of character, I think you’ll love this!!
Great review. Thank you!
humhumbum AT yahoo DOT com
Thanks for the review.
legacylandlisa(at)gmail(dot)com
Thank you for the review and for sharing the links to your playlists.
ree.dee.2014 (at) gmail (dot) com
I love it when we have a main character who is morally grey and therefore you can always question whether or not they are doing the right thing. And then you can always relate to them too, because most people have that inner debate of whether they truly are a good or bad person running through their heads. Even though they may not be an assassin themselves xD