The Emperor's Edge

Cliche plot, Mary Sue protagonist.

The following contains minor spoilers about the first third of the book.

Amaranthe is the only woman enforcer in town, a position usually reserved for men. She aspires to get a promotion, but her superior dislikes her for not having a dick. Her lazy partner receives the the offer to the promotion she wanted.

One day while dealing with a robbery at a local generic store, she fights off all of the assailants by herself. The young Emperor happens to be nearby, and saw everything. He could have helped, but he got off on watching that kind of stuff. He tells this to his advisor, Commander of the Armies Hollowcrest, lets call him Holly for short.

Holly is worried by the attention the Emperor has taken to the young woman, as he also is upset by her dicklessness. He devises the most mischievous plan in the world to remove her from his way.

“Yo, girly, come here. Want that sweet, sweet ass promotion so you can stop being harassed by every other fellow officer and become their boss? So then they will have to respect you, even though openly resenting your well deserved status, all the while secretly beating off to you?”

“Oh geeze papa Holly, who do I have to kill to have this promotion I already deserve for being the most competent and baddass enforcer in town?”

“Sicarious, the most deadly killer that ever murdered people.”

“Oh golly goodness mister Holly, of course I will... wait what? What makes you think I can kill him? Is it because I'm a baddass karate fu fighter and clever detective who can at the same time beat his ass and out smart him? or is it my lack of di...“

“Lack of dick yeah. Because you don't have a dick.”

dicklessness

In the beginning, I was skeptical of this book because I knew the first encounter between Sicarius and Amaranthe would be disastrous, to say the least. However, after one of my favorite authors gave the series a wondrous review, I decided to pick it up again. I quite enjoyed this book. There was plenty of action to keep my mind occupied. The subtle growing relationship between Sicarius and Amaranthe didn't hurt either. Amaranthe's team's antics were delightful as well. All in all, a good book, however it did annoy me how Sespian never got the situation straight with Amaranthe and Sicarius. One day...however, I'm about 98% certain it won't end well.

Rereading The Emperor's Edge after reading it first one year ago. I remember thinking I liked it pretty well on my first read. I did not feel compelled to read the second in the series immediately. However, when months later I picked up the second, due to lack of other reading material, I liked it so much I sprinted straight through the other books in the series without stopping. I am enjoying my second read of this first in the series. The book has a humor as it talks of danger. I like the slow, like molasses romance hints.

This book had a bit of a rough start (the Emperor was in love with our protagonist after one conversation by chapter three), but it turned out alright in the end. The side characters were the best part, even if the whole “attempted assassination” plot was only occasionally interesting.

There's a lot of action going on and it is relatively fun, but don't expect there to be much depth to it, or at least not emotionally.