I was originally drawn by the cover. After only a cursory glance at the description, I bought the book knowing only that the protagonist was kidnapped from her parents home for her gift with languages to decipher cryptic codes. The whole time, I thought it was a YA and that's really what made me want to read it (check my shelves, I'm all about YA) but it wasn't until the first 5 chapters I realized I was WAY off and read the actual descriptions and reviews.
To my surprise, I was pleasantly surprised to have stumbled on to my first adult Fantasy/Sci-Fi book. Being a recent fan of The Sword and Laser on Goodreads and listening to them describe these genre books, I've been meaning to read one, and I could not have picked a better one to start off with!
Tikaya DOES get kidnapped from her parents home, but she is a 30 year old woman whose fiancée was killed in this war a nation known as Turgonians started, which meant to take over her islands. During the war she was recruited to decipher war messages against them and was a key part in their stalemate and failure. After the war and the death of her fiancée, she goes back to the island, but can't make herself go back to the polytechnic school she used to work at and instead stays helping her family in their rum business. In her land and to the Nurians (the other nation that she helped) she is a hero, but to the Turgonians, she is evil incarnate and public enemy #1. When they kidnap her, everyone treats her like crap, she is hated by everyone of the Turgonian marines and the captain and if not for a fellow prisoner speaking up and distracting them, would have been raped and abused on her first night on their ship. The captain is kind of an idiot, but he is determined to guarantee her compliance to translate these weird ciphers and tells her that although her fate is decided for her war crimes against The Empire, her compliance will keep her family alive. With no choice, Tikaya starts trying to figure out the new language. One night, working on trying to make an ally of her fellow prisoner, she realizes he has seen the ciphers before. The integer level rises. Can she trust this guy with no name except for Number 5? What are the ciphers and what language is it they are trying to get her to unlock? Worse yet, why do they want it and why do her previous allies, the Nurians, wants her dead because of it?
I thought the book would get too Sci-Fi-ey and kinda lose my interest, but it didn't. It had action and adventure, mystery and puzzles, even romance (which totally won me over). And the best part was that it was written so well, I could almost picture everything like movie scenes. Best movie I imagined in quite a while!
Would love to read more from this author and definately recommend to those wanting to test the waters in this genre. I hope there is a spin off where we get to know more about Sicarius. A baby faced assassin is just to good to ignore.
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