--- product_id: 17007160 title: "Fool's Assassin: Book I of the Fitz and the Fool Trilogy" price: "$162.79" currency: USD in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.us/products/17007160-fools-assassin-book-i-of-the-fitz-and-the-fool store_origin: US region: United States of America --- # Fool's Assassin: Book I of the Fitz and the Fool Trilogy **Price:** $162.79 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Fool's Assassin: Book I of the Fitz and the Fool Trilogy - **How much does it cost?** $162.79 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.us](https://www.desertcart.us/products/17007160-fools-assassin-book-i-of-the-fitz-and-the-fool) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Nearly twenty years ago, Robin Hobb burst upon the fantasy scene with the first of her acclaimed Farseer novels, Assassin’s Apprentice, which introduced the characters of FitzChivalry Farseer and his uncanny friend the Fool. A watershed moment in modern fantasy, this novel—and those that followed—broke exciting new ground in a beloved genre. Together with George R. R. Martin, Robin Hobb helped pave the way for such talented new voices as Scott Lynch, Brandon Sanderson, and Naomi Novik. Over the years, Hobb’s imagination has soared throughout the mythic lands of the Six Duchies in such bestselling series as the Liveship Traders Trilogy and the Rain Wilds Chronicles. But no matter how far she roamed, her heart always remained with Fitz. And now, at last, she has come home, with an astonishing new novel that opens a dark and gripping chapter in the Farseer saga. FitzChivalry—royal bastard and former king’s assassin—has left his life of intrigue behind. As far as the rest of the world knows, FitzChivalry Farseer is dead and buried. Masquerading as Tom Badgerlock, Fitz is now married to his childhood sweetheart, Molly, and leading the quiet life of a country squire. Though Fitz is haunted by the disappearance of the Fool, who did so much to shape Fitz into the man he has become, such private hurts are put aside in the business of daily life, at least until the appearance of menacing, pale-skinned strangers casts a sinister shadow over Fitz’s past . . . and his future. Now, to protect his new life, the former assassin must once again take up his old one. . . . Praise for Fool’s Assassin “Hobb knows the complicated workings of the wayward human heart, and she takes time to depict them in her tale, to tell her story sweetly, insistently, compellingly. . . . A book meant to be inhabited rather than run through.” — The Seattle Times “[FitzChivalry Farseer is] one of the best characters in fantasy literature.” — Fantasy Book Review “[Hobb’s] prose sparkles, her characters leap off the page.” — Tordotcom “Modern fantasy at its irresistible best.” —The Guardian “Fantastic . . . emotionally rich storytelling.” —Library Journal (starred review) Review: Writing at its finest - Fool’s Assassin by Robin Hobb, was described by George R. R. Martin as “fantasy as it ought to be written.” Until I read the novel, I didn’t really know quite what Martin meant, but having devoured this next episode in The Fitz and The Fool fables, I understand. This is a simply sublime book that takes the reader on an incredible emotional and psychological journey into family, love, paternity, childhood, and the difficulties of raising a child who’s deemed “different” and the immense suffering that comes with great love and loss. This novel reintroduces Fitz, the unwilling assassin, gifted with both The Wit and The Skill, the man who’s described as The Fool’s Catalyst and a power to be reckoned with in his own right. It also plunges readers back into the hauntingly beautiful and wonderfully imagined wider world Hobb has crafted over so many books and of which Fitz is an integral part. Now a middle-aged landholder, who goes by the name of Tom Badgerlock, Fitz is living a contented existence. Hiding in the counties, happy to live out his final years with his beloved wife Molly, he resists and resents the occasional call of the Farseer rulers and his former mentor, Chade. One cold, Winterfest night, a pale messenger seeks out Fitz. With the house of full of guests and strangers and as host, Fitz is much distracted. Too busy to see her, he sends a request she waits till morning. When she vanishes in a trail of blood before she can deliver her message, it’s a decision he lives to regret. Trying to put his perturbation behind him, Fitz cannot dismiss the messenger’s presence let alone disappearance entirely. What happened to her and what did she want? More importantly, who sent her? Years pass and it’s not till a miracle happens in Fitz’s and Molly’s life and a series of events follow that do not augur well, that the night of the messenger comes back to haunt Fitz. On the footsteps of great joy, tragedy must follow but it’s not until someone from Fitz’s past reappears in dire need that the king’s former assassin knows his life and that of all those he loves will never be the same again. I really cannot say too much more without risking spoiling what is an incredible, heart-wrenching, moving, joyous, tragic and simply astonishingly beautiful tale. There is a raw honesty and truth in every page, every word that lingers long after you close the novel for the night. I found the story and those populating it were at the back of my mind most days. When I finished the book, I wanted to discuss it with my friends, not only to shed light on the characters and their choices, but so I didn’t have to leave Fitz’s world. Each and every character in this tale is so real and raw – whether it’s a servant in the house, a distant relative, an unwelcome guest or a member of the immediate family. You live and breath each moment with them as their thoughts and thus hearts, souls and minds are laid bare. I think this is what made the book so utterly special and unputdownable. I made excuses not to work but to return to the novel over and over and felt so lost when I finished it. The hardest thing of all is knowing how long I have to wait to read the next instalment in the series… This isn’t just fantasy at its best – this is writing at its very finest. A story to be treasured and savoured. Review: Required for Fitz fans—excellent character-driven fantasy - I loved Robin Hobbs’ Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies, even though I haven’t really connected with her more recent series. So when I saw that she was revisiting the lives of the characters in those earlier series in her new novel, I knew I had to read it. And I’m glad I did. In Fool’s Assassin, the action picks up about a decade after the end of the Tawny Man series. Fitz is now married to the love of his life, Molly, and as Tom Badgerlock is living with her on the Withywoods estate that belonged to his royal father. They are happy together, although saddened a bit by the fact Molly and he have been unable to have another child together. However, after all hope is gone, Molly miraculously does give birth to a daughter, Bee, although the child is odd—blond when both her parents are dark, strangely undersized and slow to grow, unable to speak clearly—so that her parents question her health and intelligence. Gradually, though, it becomes obvious that in spite of all her physical oddities, there is nothing wrong with Bee’s intellect. But even her parents’ don’t know the full extent of the strangeness of her mind . . . . Meanwhile, Fitz frets about his inability to completely escape the demands of the Farseer throne. He also is hurt by the silence of the Fool, who has not communicated with him in years. It’s not until a strange messenger shows up, injured and dying, that Fitz realizes that the Fool has been trying to communicate with him. And given the state of the messenger, he apparently has terrible enemies. First of all, this is character-driven fantasy. Do not read this book if you want fantasy with a lot of action. That’s not what this novel is about, since most of what action there is can be found in the very last chapters of the book. What Hobbs does here is create a long slow build to that action, taking the reader through years in the lives of Fitz and his family in order to establish his life as a husband and father and how that conflicts with his dangerous past. It’s not until those last chapters that the danger reaches out to engulf his present. For me, the end result was to make those final chapters even more powerful, because they sit in contrast to the general peacefulness that he has finally found in his life. The slow build also gives the reader time to get to know Fitz’s daughter, Bee. Unlike the earlier novels, where all of the action is told from Fitz’s perspective, here his first-person narration alternates with Bee’s point of view. I absolutely devoured this novel. It gripped me from the first page, and only draining the battery on my tablet got me to stop reading. The lack of action didn’t bother me at all; I was happy to immerse myself in Fitz’s life and then Bee’s. And when the action culminated in the last chapters, all I could think was, “No! Not that!” And darn you, Robin Hobb, for leaving me desperate to know what happened next. This book is required reading for fans of Fitz and the Fool. It might be advisable to re-read the earlier novels if possible; it’s been so long since I read the first two series that I was a little lost in terms of references to plot points in the earlier books. Readers who enjoy character-driven fantasy should start with the earlier Fitz books, if by some sad mischance they haven’t already encountered them. An ARC of Fool’s Assassin was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #710,293 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #464 in Epic Fantasy (Books) #1,747 in Paranormal Fantasy Books #2,303 in Action & Adventure Fantasy (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 17,265 Reviews | ## Images ![Fool's Assassin: Book I of the Fitz and the Fool Trilogy - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81+Hy82gGdL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Writing at its finest *by K***B on September 20, 2014* Fool’s Assassin by Robin Hobb, was described by George R. R. Martin as “fantasy as it ought to be written.” Until I read the novel, I didn’t really know quite what Martin meant, but having devoured this next episode in The Fitz and The Fool fables, I understand. This is a simply sublime book that takes the reader on an incredible emotional and psychological journey into family, love, paternity, childhood, and the difficulties of raising a child who’s deemed “different” and the immense suffering that comes with great love and loss. This novel reintroduces Fitz, the unwilling assassin, gifted with both The Wit and The Skill, the man who’s described as The Fool’s Catalyst and a power to be reckoned with in his own right. It also plunges readers back into the hauntingly beautiful and wonderfully imagined wider world Hobb has crafted over so many books and of which Fitz is an integral part. Now a middle-aged landholder, who goes by the name of Tom Badgerlock, Fitz is living a contented existence. Hiding in the counties, happy to live out his final years with his beloved wife Molly, he resists and resents the occasional call of the Farseer rulers and his former mentor, Chade. One cold, Winterfest night, a pale messenger seeks out Fitz. With the house of full of guests and strangers and as host, Fitz is much distracted. Too busy to see her, he sends a request she waits till morning. When she vanishes in a trail of blood before she can deliver her message, it’s a decision he lives to regret. Trying to put his perturbation behind him, Fitz cannot dismiss the messenger’s presence let alone disappearance entirely. What happened to her and what did she want? More importantly, who sent her? Years pass and it’s not till a miracle happens in Fitz’s and Molly’s life and a series of events follow that do not augur well, that the night of the messenger comes back to haunt Fitz. On the footsteps of great joy, tragedy must follow but it’s not until someone from Fitz’s past reappears in dire need that the king’s former assassin knows his life and that of all those he loves will never be the same again. I really cannot say too much more without risking spoiling what is an incredible, heart-wrenching, moving, joyous, tragic and simply astonishingly beautiful tale. There is a raw honesty and truth in every page, every word that lingers long after you close the novel for the night. I found the story and those populating it were at the back of my mind most days. When I finished the book, I wanted to discuss it with my friends, not only to shed light on the characters and their choices, but so I didn’t have to leave Fitz’s world. Each and every character in this tale is so real and raw – whether it’s a servant in the house, a distant relative, an unwelcome guest or a member of the immediate family. You live and breath each moment with them as their thoughts and thus hearts, souls and minds are laid bare. I think this is what made the book so utterly special and unputdownable. I made excuses not to work but to return to the novel over and over and felt so lost when I finished it. The hardest thing of all is knowing how long I have to wait to read the next instalment in the series… This isn’t just fantasy at its best – this is writing at its very finest. A story to be treasured and savoured. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Required for Fitz fans—excellent character-driven fantasy *by S***. on August 12, 2014* I loved Robin Hobbs’ Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies, even though I haven’t really connected with her more recent series. So when I saw that she was revisiting the lives of the characters in those earlier series in her new novel, I knew I had to read it. And I’m glad I did. In Fool’s Assassin, the action picks up about a decade after the end of the Tawny Man series. Fitz is now married to the love of his life, Molly, and as Tom Badgerlock is living with her on the Withywoods estate that belonged to his royal father. They are happy together, although saddened a bit by the fact Molly and he have been unable to have another child together. However, after all hope is gone, Molly miraculously does give birth to a daughter, Bee, although the child is odd—blond when both her parents are dark, strangely undersized and slow to grow, unable to speak clearly—so that her parents question her health and intelligence. Gradually, though, it becomes obvious that in spite of all her physical oddities, there is nothing wrong with Bee’s intellect. But even her parents’ don’t know the full extent of the strangeness of her mind . . . . Meanwhile, Fitz frets about his inability to completely escape the demands of the Farseer throne. He also is hurt by the silence of the Fool, who has not communicated with him in years. It’s not until a strange messenger shows up, injured and dying, that Fitz realizes that the Fool has been trying to communicate with him. And given the state of the messenger, he apparently has terrible enemies. First of all, this is character-driven fantasy. Do not read this book if you want fantasy with a lot of action. That’s not what this novel is about, since most of what action there is can be found in the very last chapters of the book. What Hobbs does here is create a long slow build to that action, taking the reader through years in the lives of Fitz and his family in order to establish his life as a husband and father and how that conflicts with his dangerous past. It’s not until those last chapters that the danger reaches out to engulf his present. For me, the end result was to make those final chapters even more powerful, because they sit in contrast to the general peacefulness that he has finally found in his life. The slow build also gives the reader time to get to know Fitz’s daughter, Bee. Unlike the earlier novels, where all of the action is told from Fitz’s perspective, here his first-person narration alternates with Bee’s point of view. I absolutely devoured this novel. It gripped me from the first page, and only draining the battery on my tablet got me to stop reading. The lack of action didn’t bother me at all; I was happy to immerse myself in Fitz’s life and then Bee’s. And when the action culminated in the last chapters, all I could think was, “No! Not that!” And darn you, Robin Hobb, for leaving me desperate to know what happened next. This book is required reading for fans of Fitz and the Fool. It might be advisable to re-read the earlier novels if possible; it’s been so long since I read the first two series that I was a little lost in terms of references to plot points in the earlier books. Readers who enjoy character-driven fantasy should start with the earlier Fitz books, if by some sad mischance they haven’t already encountered them. An ARC of Fool’s Assassin was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The good, the bad and the brilliant *by D***N on December 23, 2015* Wow. An entire book as just the set up for the actual story. I wonder if that is unique in the annals of literature? Yet it is beautifully written, eerie and unique. Of course I was utterly unprepared for the story of the birth, infancy and childhood of a magical 'pixie' with prophetic dreams. Robin Hobb never ceases to amaze me. Unique may actually be an understatement for Fool's Assassin. At times this book is so strange it is unsettling. But it pulls you in and never lets go. Putting this story down and walking away from it isn't even an option. Fitz, the hero of several earlier books by Robin Hobb, is now in his fifties but is in anguish because he has the health and body of a man of about thirty five, due to a Skill healing he once received which is still at work. This has to be another first. I've never heard of a person in fiction or the real world who would rather be old and falling apart than young and healthy. Apparently his wife Molly felt the same way. Go figure. Perhaps the author is trying to tell us that growing old and decrepit is nature's way after all and we shouldn't interfere in that process. If that's the case I don't buy it. Fritz and Molly just come off as weirdly eccentric in that regard. Fitz has become eccentric in a number of ways at this stage of his life. As with the previous Six Duchies books, Fool's Assassin takes place in a fantasy world which is roughly equivalent to our late medieval/early renaissance period of history. Fitz is the "Holder" for a large manor house and estate and has ample reason to believe that dangerous men may invade his domain and yet he is determined not to hire soldiers or security for the estate. Considering the world and history of the Six Duchies Fitz should have had at least twenty seasoned men at arms guarding the manor house and estate. That's a minimum. If Withywoods Manor is ever attacked the resulting death and chaos will be largely Fitz's fault. Exceedingly odd and irresponsible for someone who has experienced war in his own homeland! It's strange to care so much about a character, through so many books, who can never get his act together. What's really irritating about this is it's all too obvious the author is "setting up" a catastrophe. Nevertheless I'm hooked once again on a Robin Hobb story and can only continue to hope that Fitz will somehow grow up and become miraculously blessed by common sense in his older years. Perhaps he will find a new wolf Wit companion who will whisper wise advice in his ear. Bee is a fascinating, wonderful and unique character. Shun is a composite of everything that could possibly be wrong with a person. Chade is Chade and is always welcome. And then of course there is the Fool, who is another absolutely fabulous character! The Fool's story of "The Servants" and how they tortured him was one of the creepiest, strange and well written stories I've ever read. The author does not rely on the expected, classic formulas for evil people. The story the Fool tells is a totally unique and chilling. A masterful and utterly original journey into the gruesome, inhuman and macabre. It is all the more amazing coming from an author who writes so genuinely of love, beauty and tenderness. This author certainly has her moments of brilliance. Highly recommended despite (and sometimes because of) its quirks and oddities. Minus one star for a major character (Fitz) who is obsessed with protecting his daughter Bee and yet goes out of his way to do absolutely nothing to protect her. That doesn't ring true and in the end it was completely unnecessary to write it that way. Oh well, I'll just use my handy dandy suspension of disbelief and move on. I'm ready for book two! --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.us/products/17007160-fools-assassin-book-i-of-the-fitz-and-the-fool](https://www.desertcart.us/products/17007160-fools-assassin-book-i-of-the-fitz-and-the-fool) --- *Product available on Desertcart United States of America* *Store origin: US* *Last updated: 2026-07-12*