Lina lost everything. She had been the best assassin in Sunpo, despatching baddies and anyone who got in the way at the behest of her crimelord-turned-father figure. But when Konrarnd Kalmin, the leader of an enemy gang, has all the Talons except for Lina executed, she’s forced to kill for the man she despises. If she doesn’t, he’ll kill Lina’s little sister, who is off in the mountains going to school away from all the bloodshed.
Now, Kalmin forces her to steal and destroy a sacred tapestry that, as they both are surprised to learn, belonged to Haneul Rui, aka the Pied Piper, a Dokkaebi who steals humans into his realm, Gyeulcheon. Rui also happens to be the emperor of said realm. He does his pied piper flute magic on Kalmin, but while Lina is more than happy to let her nemesis rot on the end of Rui’s sword, Kalmin’s second in command threatens to kill her sister if she doesn’t get him back. Rui offers her a deal of his own: she has 14 days to kill him or he kills her as punishment.
With her back against the wall, Lina is desperate for options, any options. A secret group of revolutionaries looking to get rid of the emperor is either her key to victory or the road to disaster. But when she and Rui find themselves going from sniping at each other to flirting, Lina’s choices are reduced even more. Can she kill the man she also wants to kiss?
There are many things to love about Last of the Talons and a few things that keep it from reaching its full potential. The book is more of a fantasy romance than a fantasy with romance in it; all other storylines fall second to the bubbling heat between Lina and Rui. That worked for me, frankly. They’re both such compelling characters that I didn’t really care what they were doing as long as I got to see them bicker/flirt. In fact, one of my favorite scenes was them just having a conversation in a field of wildflowers. It’s a quiet moment where personal truths are shared but not much happens in terms of action. It reminded me so much of that scene in the Howl’s Moving Castle movie where Howl takes Sophie to his secret meadow.
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Last of the Talons
The flashbacks were interesting but largely unnecessary. Most of what we learned could’ve been conveyed in the main storyline without slowing down the plot or pace. By the end they felt more like padding than anything else. I can see the reasoning for having them, which I won’t reveal for spoilers. Yet with the book at nearly 400 pages long, anything even remotely superfluous stands out like a sore thumb.
The bigger issue for me was Lina, not her personality but her job. As a character, she’s great. Ferocious, determined, always ready to fight. She’s everything I love in a feisty YA fantasy heroine. She swears constantly and refuses to offer deference to those who haven’t earned her respect. Rui is a good match for her. His personality is just as strong and defiant but he knows how to use his talents to make things go his way more often than not. Both have done despicable things for nefarious purposes but are also secure in their personal moral codes. She could learn a lot from him if she ever stops trying to kill him.
That being said…despite the reader repeatedly being told that she’s the greatest assassin in Sunpo and a cold-blooded killer, she’s surprisingly bad at her job. Nearly all of her victories are off camera, mentioned in passing and not elaborated on. The only times we really see her do her assassin thing are when she fails. Spectacularly. And in ways that would be apparent and predictable to anyone looking at the situation. She strolls into what is clearly a trap, then does it several more in different circumstances and without any awareness or attempt at learning from her mistakes. I have no issue with teenagers in YA novels doing ridiculous and impulsive things without thinking them through—they’re teenagers after all. However, I also know that if I was 18 and got all my friends brutally killed and myself enslaved to a sadistic tyrant because I made an easily avoidable mistake, I would make sure I didn’t keep making that same mistake over and over again.
This little flaw in turn causes a bigger one: a wonky plot. The only way to get her to the final confrontation is for the world’s greatest assassin to not notice or even anticipate betrayals from characters who are clearly lying to her for reasons that aren’t hard to figure out if she stopped for two seconds to think about what she’s walking into. At no point does she or anyone else realize she is not living up to her moniker. She endures some jokes about her failed attempts at killing the emperor, but the narrative doesn’t give any weight to them. Every choice she makes is impacted by the chasm between what we’re told to believe about her and what she can actually do, to the point where the plot feels less like plot progression and more a series of forced plot devices stitched together. Fortunately for Kim, everything around the plot structure is strong enough to make the issues not feel like obstacles.
Setting aside the plot stuff, Sophie Kim’s story as a whole is electric and enticing. Last of the Talons ends on a huge cliffhanger by teasing a storyline I’m very much interested in. I’ll definitely be back for book two when it hits the shelves next year.
Last of the Talons is published by Entangled Teen.
Alex Brown is a Hugo-nominated and Ignyte award-winning critic who writes about speculative fiction, librarianship, and Black history. Find them on twitter (@QueenOfRats), instagram (@bookjockeyalex), and their blog (bookjockeyalex.com).
