In the sixteenth year of its founding, the city-state of Wyverna teems with vitality, rife with crime, secrets, and sorcery. Like its namesake, the wyverns that hunt from the mountains above, Wyverna is a city of predators. Its pirates sail out to plunder the wealth of nations, while at home the capital seethes, an uneasy amalgam of the old ways of its anarchic peoples and the newly imposed rule of law.

The young noble Gorgo navigates these complexities with ease, until one night he learns of a plot to assassinate Wyverna’s legendary founder, the Warlord. The rebels have obtained a mighty relic: an ancient copper golem created to be the ultimate assassin. Invulnerable and relentless, the golem destroyed the civilization that birthed it. If it kills the Warlord, Gorgo realizes his city too will fall, ripped apart by civil war.

Armed with nothing but his wits and his courage, Gorgo sets out to find a way to save Wyverna. His mission will take him from the elegant casinos of downtown to the chaotic docks where smugglers prowl, from the hot sands of the arena to the cold midnight of magic-shadowed streets. But even he cannot foresee where his path will ultimately lead, and to what consequences. It’s crazy how fast things move in the world of the SPFBO contest…not only was The Sword of Kaigen crowned champion this past week, the judges for the next SPFBO were already announced!

And while I have no idea if Madolyn Rogers plans to enter her debut novel, The Copper Assassin, into the contest, it certainly seems like the kind of book that could do well! This is the first book in the Tales of Wyverna series, and right off the bat, this is a book that catches your eye in a serious way. The cover art from Wirawan Pranoto (Polar Engine Studio) coupled with the badass cover design from STK Kreations makes for one of the coolest self-published covers I’ve seen in awhile! The field for self-published fantasy novels is extremely crowded, and I think having that super GIMME THAT NOW quality to the cover is really critical.

Things get going rather quickly in The Copper Assassin, and in a way, I almost wished for a bit more of a slow buildup. The main character of the novel is Gorgo, a young noble in the city of Wyverna. It felt like we barely got to know Gorgo before he finds himself tangled up in a web of conspiracy & danger. A chance encounter leaves Gorgo in possession of a secret that threatens the stability of Wyverna, which is a new city to begin with. He feels compelled to act, and things move forward from there.

Where things get really fun in this book is where the titular copper assassin is concerned. An ancient relic that, in the right (or wrong) hands turns into an unstoppable killing machine, the golem is the key to the story. She goes by the name Cockatrice, and the scenes with her & Gorgo were for sure my favorite aspects of the book. The dialogue Rogers writes for Cockatrice is really unique, and sometimes hovers around the line between kinda funny and kinda scary.

The Copper Assassin is a really well written debut, but I did feel like occasionally character development came second to some pretty intense world building. I ultimately felt a bit disconnected from Gorgo…I just wanted to know more about who he was, and what was driving him.

That said, I’d definitely recommend this one, and I’m really curious about where the story is heading next!

Big thanks to Madolyn Rogers for sending me a copy of The Copper Assassin!