[personal profile] quippe
The Blurb On The Back:

I am the perfect weapon.

I kill with a single touch.


Twylla is blessed. The Gods have chosen her to marry a prince, and rule the kingdom. But the favour of the Gods has its price. A deadly poison infuses her skin. Those who anger the queen must die under Twylla’s fatal touch.

Only Lief, an outspoken new guard, can see past Twylla’s chilling role to the girl she truly is.

Yet in a court as dangerous as the queen’s, some truths should not be told …




17-year-old Twylla is the living incarnation of the goddess Daunen. Taken from her mother (a Sin Eater tasked with eating funeral feasts for those who die so that their spirits can pass to the next world) and younger sister, she lives with the royal family in a castle and is betrothed to marry Prince Merek. But Twylla’s world is one of terrible duty as well as enormous privilege. Her skin contains a poison that kills anyone she touches – anyone except the royal family – and the Queen makes her use that gift to execute those guilty of treason.

When Prince Merek returns to court after several years travelling, Twylla hopes she can get to know her fiancé better but then a new guard – Lief – is assigned to protect her who shows none of the deference that should be given to Daunen Embodied, instead treating her as a woman. Torn between duty and her growing feelings, Twylla knows that she’s treading a dangerous path, especially as the Queen will kill anyone who threatens her court …

Melinda Salisbury’s debut YA fantasy novel is an intelligently constructed story about first love and betrayal that subverts many of the genre’s clichés. I particularly enjoyed the fact that Salisbury makes women important in her society – the Queen holds political power in the kingdom (with the king reduced to consort) and the Sin Eater holds religious power (if she refuses to eat the dead’s sins then they are doomed to roam for eternity). Twylla’s story arc involves learning lessons from both of these women but at the same time forging her own path. Although the inevitable love triangle element between Twylla, Lief and Merek is skewered in one direction, Salisbury throws enough curve balls so that it doesn’t go as you’d imagine. That said, I did find Twylla an infuriatingly passive character who spends much of the book accepting and doing what she’s told (although this is acknowledged in the story) and the Queen suffers from being two-dimensional as a villain and loses all credibility in the final scenes. I also felt that the on-going significance of the myth of the Sleeping Prince didn’t properly integrate within the wider storyline and as a result, for me, felt rather underdeveloped. That said, the book held my attention from beginning to age and on the strength of this I would definitely check out Salisbury’s next novel.

The Verdict:

Melinda Salisbury’s debut YA fantasy novel is an intelligently constructed story about first love and betrayal that subverts many of the genre’s clichés. I particularly enjoyed the fact that Salisbury makes women important in her society – the Queen holds political power in the kingdom (with the king reduced to consort) and the Sin Eater holds religious power (if she refuses to eat the dead’s sins then they are doomed to roam for eternity). Twylla’s story arc involves learning lessons from both of these women but at the same time forging her own path. Although the inevitable love triangle element between Twylla, Lief and Merek is skewered in one direction, Salisbury throws enough curve balls so that it doesn’t go as you’d imagine. That said, I did find Twylla an infuriatingly passive character who spends much of the book accepting and doing what she’s told (although this is acknowledged in the story) and the Queen suffers from being two-dimensional as a villain and loses all credibility in the final scenes. I also felt that the on-going significance of the myth of the Sleeping Prince didn’t properly integrate within the wider storyline and as a result, for me, felt rather underdeveloped. That said, the book held my attention from beginning to age and on the strength of this I would definitely check out Salisbury’s next novel.

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July 2025

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