The Murderer's Apprentice

The Quentaris Chronicles #17

by Pamela Freeman

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Pamela Freeman is an Australian author of books for both adults and children. Most of her work is fantasy but she has also written mystery stories, science fiction, family dramas and non-fiction. Her first adult series, the Castings Trilogy (Blood Ties, Deep Water and Full Circle) is published globally by Orbit books. She is best known in Australia for the junior novel Victor’s Quest and an associated series, the Floramonde books, and for The Black Dress: Mary MacKillop’s Early Years, which won the NSW Premier’s History Prize in 2006.

As of 2015, she will also be publishing historical novels under the name Pamela Hart.

Reviews

[Karen Field · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title attracted me to this story. I'd read other Quentaris books some years ago and enjoyed them, so decided to purchase this one. It wasn't until I got home and examined the book more closely that I realised it was written by Pamela Freeman, author of The Castings Trilogy, which I loved.

The main character of The Murderers' Apprentice is named Merrith. She is apprenticed to become an assassin with the Murderers' Guild. But Merrith doesn't actually like killing people and she's not doing too well in her lessons as a result.

But she can't just walk away from the guild as a prophecy has everyone else convinced that she's going to save Quentaris. Unlikely as it sounds to her, she goes through the Rift Caves and attempts to do her job.

The book is easy to read and easy to absorb. I enjoyed the story line and liked the characters. Whilst I wouldn't consider the book 'deep', sometimes that's not what I want when reading. I accepted the book for what it is and should be -- entertaining.

[Georgia G]

This was the first book I read of the Quentaris series. They are mostly stand alone books from different authors who create stories of different people in the same fantasy world. Since they are from different authors, it is a bit of a pain to find another in the series. Once you have finally reached the place where the one you are looking for is usually kept, it might not actually be there.

This is one of the books that feature the Rifts. Rifts are caves which lead to different worlds and Quentaris is sort of like the world in between. THERE IS NO MURDER IN THIS BOOK!!! The title here is very misleading. This is just the placement of the main character. Mini spoil: She changes careers.