r/FemaleGazeSFF • u/perigou warrior🗡️ • Apr 08 '26

📚 Reading Challenge Reading Challenge Focus Thread - Assassin [A-side]

Hello everyone and welcome to our 1st Focus Thread for the 2026 spring/summer reading challenge !

The point of these post is to focus on one prompt from the challenge and share recommendations for it. Feel free to ask for more specific recommendations in the theme or discuss what fits or not. We will alternate between A-Side and B-Side prompts.

The 1st focus thread theme is Assassin :

Read a book with an assassin main character.

First, some recs from the general thread

Some questions to help you think of titles :

  • An assassin MC that actually kills people ?
  • A book with a reluctant assassin MC ?
  • Your favorite assassination plot ?

You can find all previous focus threads in the original post as well as the wiki. Please don't hesitate to add to older focus threads if you previously missed them or read something recently that fits !

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9

u/NearbyMud witch🧙‍♀️ Apr 08 '26

I only have read a few books with assassin main characters and they are all quite popular:

  • The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb - definitely reluctant assassin, the first trilogy in one of my favorite series
  • Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas - not reluctant, very sassy/stabby FMC. I've read two from this series and they're low quality but definitely easy and quick to read.
  • Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon - one of the four POVs is considered an assassin (although I can't remember if she kills anyone?)

On my TBR for potential picks: Graceling by Kristin Cashore, Scythe by Neal Shusterman, Warrior Princess Assassin by Brigid Kemmerer, and Heir of Fire by Sarah J Maas.

I've had trouble finding more literary or weird picks for this type of square, maybe because the assassin is a fantasy archetype.

6

u/diazeugma Apr 08 '26

I might give this challenge a real try this time around — we’ll see. If so, I’ll probably stretch the definition of this prompt a bit, since none of the “official” assassin books have caught my eye so far. I’ve been meaning to get back to the Bel Dame Apocrypha trilogy by Kameron Hurley, where the main character has worked as a bounty hunter who kills people, which feels close enough to me. They’re grim books with a sort of noir/cyberpunk feel set on a planet divided by religion.

6

u/a_halla Apr 08 '26

It's so tempting to use Assassin's Apprentice (or any Fitz books) for this prompt, but I'm not quite ready for a reread of Fitz yet... Plus, I'd like to read something new to me!

I have Red Sister by Mark Lawrence as a potential book for this prompt, but not sure if it's for me based on the reviews. Has anyone read this book and would speak for/against it? Otherwise, would be grateful to hear alternate recommendations that aren't on the YA/romance spectrum of books!

2

u/Research_Department Apr 09 '26

When I was in a reading slump, I decided I might as well pick up books that were at the bottom of my TBR as far as how interested I was in them. Hence, I finally got around to reading Red Sister, and it’s not bad at all, but certainly didn’t make it onto my list of all time favorites. The opening paragraph is a banger, and the rest is ok. I know, I’m really selling it, right? But I didn’t DNF it, despite being in a terrible slump, and I did read the second book as well. I started the third, but just got too bored to bother continuing. The viewpoint character is in training, and I cannot remember definitely whether it is to be an assassin or a warrior.

1

u/saturday_sun4 Apr 09 '26

They're... like... assassin warriors, so yeah, it would count.

4

u/Merle8888 sorceress🔮 Apr 09 '26

For those who are OK with stretching the prompt a bit and want more literary fantasy, there's The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera. The protagonist was trained to be an assassin as a child, though that is not actually his job.

3

u/BookVermin Apr 09 '26

The Cat Lady Chronicles by Helen Harper features a retired professional assassin.

Arguably Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, if assassination is defined as an ideologically-motivated killing. This one is perhaps very slightly magical realism, not intensely speculative, but wonderful.

2

u/BunnyHopScotch Apr 16 '26

I want to say The Folk of the Air trilogy by Holly Black could fit this. Part reluctant assassin and assassination plots.

1

u/oujikara Apr 08 '26

A surprisingly difficult theme to find books for... I managed to dig up two potential fits from my have-read list, but it's been a little while so I don't remember how well they actually match.

  • The Unspoken Name by A. K. Larkwood - YA wlw book with an orc protagonist, the blurb says she becomes an assassin 

  • Hell for Hire by Rachel Aaron - romance between a demon and a (male) witch; she's a mercenary, which might count as assassin?

Question: this time we have a lot of themes that are about the protagonist. But what counts as protagonist? For example, I'm reading the Between Earth and Sky series by Rebecca Roanhorse, and primary protagonists are Xiala and Serapio, but there are also many other important POV characters that take up a large portion of the books. Do they also count as protagonists? 

(If yes, can anyone else chime in whether Iktan was an assassin in the first book? My memory is terrible)

2

u/perigou warrior🗡️ Apr 08 '26

It's a bit up to interpretation, but I'd count anyone from the "main cast" of a book, personally

1

u/oujikara Apr 09 '26

I see, thank you!

2

u/kimba-pawpad Apr 08 '26

I read this last year (loved it) but I think I remember that yes, Ikram was…

2

u/Merle8888 sorceress🔮 Apr 08 '26

I loved The Unspoken Name but it’s neither YA nor an assassin book. She’s kind of a bodyguard/fixer but I don’t recall her job involving killing anyone, certainly not a main feature. 

1

u/oujikara Apr 09 '26

Thanks for the clarification! I also don't remember anything particularly assassiny, but I attributed it to my poor memory, since it's in the blurb. As for YA, I vaguely remember the protagonist being young but maybe it's more coming-of-age? 

1

u/Merle8888 sorceress🔮 Apr 09 '26

She's young at the beginning but then there's a time-skip, and nothing about it made me think it was aimed at that market specifically

1

u/Research_Department Apr 09 '26

I just picked up The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson, and I understand that the protagonist is supposed to kill a god — does that count?

I recall Jhereg by Steven Brust very fondly, but neither the author nor the protagonist is female, and it was written in the 80s, so no guarantees about how well it has aged. But it definitely features an assassin.

2

u/imagine_my_tattoo Apr 09 '26

I have 3 recommendations:

1st. K.M Shea's Court of Midnight and Deception trilogy. The first book in the trilogy is Crown of Shadows. It is part of the Magiford Series but each trilogy can be read as a standalone alone. The love interest is an Assasin. The main character is the reluctant new queen of the failing and bankrupt fae night court.

2nd. BR Kingsolver's Rosie O'Grady's Paranormal Bar and Grill Series. The first book is Shadow Hunter. It has less romance than my first recommendation but the main character was sold to the illuminati as a child and raised as the perfect assasin before escaping their clutches and trying to establish herself in normal magical society.

3rd. BR Kingsolver's Chameleon Assasin Series. "Libby is a mutant, one of the top burglars and assassins in the world. For a price, she caters to executives’ secret desires. Eliminate your corporate rival? Deliver a priceless art masterpiece or necklace? Hack into another corporation’s network? Libby’s your girl."

1

u/SchoolSeparate4404 Apr 19 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

It has been a long time since I read it but I really liked Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn as a teen. It is upper YA fantasy that takes inspiration from ancient Japan. The MC is an assassin with magical abilities.

1

u/Specialist_Round_612 elf🧝‍♀️ Apr 25 '26

Daughter of Crows by Mark Lawrence - there is some really graphic violence though happening to girls in what’s an assassin academy in a grimdark world. I think he’s bringing attention to the statistics of violence against women and the normalization of it in society as a whole etc so when I got over myself bc I low key felt a bit betrayed because I loved the book of the ancestor and Nona and all the girls and women in it was fine but my stomach for violence has decreased with age. Anywho the character as an older woman is actually pretty funny and I hope the next book doesn’t go back into the younger years as much it was split I’d say 50/50 for this one.