(2) YA In the second book of a duology (Courting Darkness, rev. 1/19) set in an alt-historical world of fifteenth-century Brittany and France (also the setting of several of her other novels), LaFevers returns to the tangle of intrigue and danger in which she last left Sybella and Genevieve, both trained assassins of the convent of Saint Mortain, patron saint of death. Ensconced as attendant to France's new queen, Sybella fights to keep her young sisters safe from her half-brother, a powerful and sexually predatory viscount. Meanwhile, Genevieve has become a sometimes-trusted lover and friend to France's king, but has endangered the convent she serves by telling him of its nature. And, pressed as he is on all sides by seditious, power-greedy advisors, the king's indecisiveness and insecurities are the greatest threat of all. LaFevers wraps up the romances and story lines of escape and treachery first set in motion in the previous volume, in part through a broader arena of rebellion and national misalliance, which culminates in the (literal) pyrotechnics of Sybella, Genevieve, and their band of friends and allies. Aside from their formidable efficiency in killing and routing much larger forces--skills the novel values highly--Sybella and Genevieve are characterized as finding healing and resolution from traumatic pasts through romance and through their own sisterly solidarity.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2021

(2) YA In LaFevers's alt-historical fifteenth-century Brittany, Sybella (from the His Fair Assassin trilogy), the trained assassin and daughter of Saint Mortain, becomes attendant to the Queen of France. Not far away, Genevieve, a novice from Saint Mortain's convent who had gone missing, is making the hazardous journey back to the French court. Alternating between Sybella's and Genevieve's voices, LaFevers maintains an intense pitch of intrigue, with murders, assaults, romance, and betrayals.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2019

(2) YA His Fair Assassin series. Annith, daughter of Mortain, god of Death, rebels against her abbess's decree that she remain immured in the convent as Mortain's seeress. Her escape revolutionizes Annith's understanding of her nature. LaFevers's writing often slips to the banal depths of an adolescent's romantic fantasy and overwhelms engagement with the story's fictional fifteenth-century-Brittany setting. Even so, LaFevers effectively ties up loose ends of the trilogy's cast.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2014

(2) YA His Fair Assassin series. In this sequel to Grave Mercy Sybella is now a convent-trained assassin serving St. Mortain, Death himself, picking off her marks with stealthy efficiency even while she remains terrified of her father's cruelty. Loosely based on political events in fifteenth-century France, this is romantic fantasy with a vengeance, a pungent mix of inner torment, costume drama, and dagger-, sword-, poison-, and garrote-play.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2013

(2) YA His Fair Assassin series. Running from an arranged marriage, seventeen-year-old Ismae lands up at St. Mortain's convent, discovers she has special gifts (and that her true father is Mortain, the god of Death), and trains to become an assassin--the true vocation of a daughter of Death. This light romantic fantasy, set in an alternate, fictional, quasi-late medieval Brittany, might well appeal to fans of Libba Bray's Rebel Angels books.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2012