"May you never find a knot you can't unravel." These words greeted me as I opened the gorgeous cover of Tangled Web by Crista McHugh. I immediately smiled as these words griped my heart and gave me the feeling that they were a good omen for my life. I gently turned to the first page of the exquisite novel and began reading.
The novel opens with the reader learning that the teal eyed Alpirion, Azurha, is a slave and has been tied to wooden posts for three days after being repeatedly raped by her master and her master's friends. Another slave, Ramina, comes in the room and takes pity on her. Ramina gives Azurha a drink of water and then helps her to release herself. Ramina picks up a broken piece of pottery and slices through one of the ropes binding Azurha's wrists. She hands Azurha the shard so she is able to finish freeing herself. As Azurha is almost finished cutting through the ropes that bind her, her master begins to wake up. She quickly finishes slicing through her bonds and slits her master's throat. With that act Azurha has committed a great crime and must flee for her life. After escaping her former master's home, she runs into Cassius. Cassius takes her under his wing and trains her to become an assassin.
Seven years after gaining her freedom, Azurha, who has become known as the Rabbit, has been hired by Governor Pontus to assassinate the new Emperor of the Deizian empire. She enters the Emperor's palace disguised as a concubine. She has two weeks to complete her mission, but things get complicated. Azurha becomes too close to Emperor Sergius, known to Azurha as Titus. She sees potential in him and his ideas to change the empire. She sees a man who can change his empire for the better, but for the empire to become a better place Azurha must fail her mission and protect Titus for any other assassination attempts.
As Azurha's tale unfolds the reader is pulled into her gripping story and you can't help but feel for her. She falls in love with Titus just as much as he falls in love with her. Yet because of her past, and because of what she was originally sent to the palace to do, she feels like she is unworthy of his love. I believe that almost everyone has felt like they are unworthy of someone's love at least once in their life, so the reader can't help but feel compassion for her.
I quickly fell in love with this novel and could hardly put it down. Crista McHugh has a way of pulling her readers in and not letting them go. I was left wanting to know more at the end of Tangled Web and desperately wishing that a second novel was already available.
