Book Review: The Assassin and the Soldier by Carly Morgan

Has she finally met her match?

During a time of political unrest, convicted assassin Kaelia gets a chance to win back her freedom on a reality TV show competition. Released temporarily from prison, the twenty-two-year-old is given fancy digs in a hotel and her very own personal trainer, Callan.

But Kaelia is harboring a secret: she isn’t like other people. Spliced with the DNA of some of the most predatory animals on the planet, Kaelia was grown in a lab as an embryo and possesses heightened strengths and abilities. She’s confident she will win the competition and can do so without the likes of Callan Merone ‘training’ her.

But Callan, an ex-soldier for the totalitarian political party that imprisoned her, happens to have the very same secret. Eventually fed up with Kaelia’s arrogance and devil-may-care attitude, he turns her over his knee. For the first time in her life, Kaelia realizes there is someone in the world who can overpower her – and the idea is more arousing than she ever thought it could be.

Publisher’s Note: This steamy dystopian romance contains elements of action, adventure, mystery, suspense, and power exchange.

---

My Review:

I’m really on the fence with this book. The background story is a fascinating dystopian blend of The Hunger Games and Divergent, with a little bit of The X-Men and Death Race thrown in for color. But because those primary works are geared toward a much younger audience, I was left feeling uncomfortable with a lot of the power exchange aspects of the story. I liked Callan. I had no issues with his character at all. Kaelia left me scratching my head a lot of the time. How was she such a world-renowned assassin, if she’s such a reckless brat? The two sets of traits just didn’t make sense in my head. There were also some spelling, grammar and continuity errors that kept pulling me out of the story. However, the corrupt corporate government storyline is compelling and makes me very interested to see what comes next. I received a complimentary copy of this book through Booksprout.