Fool's Assassin by Robin Hobb

This is the first book in a new trilogy by Ms. Hobb.  As usual, her words tantalize you and make you care about her characters.  Fitz is living his life as a gentleman farmer and no longer fights for the king.  His wolf has died and he misses him.  The Fool moved on and he hasn't heard from him.  He's a bit hurt by that.  But he has Molly, so he's content.  It doesn't last...

Del Ray sent me a copy of this book to read for review (thank you).  It has been published.

This is a long book but you never get bored.  There's intrigue, politics and more games being played behind the scenes.  Just when everything was going well, trouble comes again.  A young woman comes with a message but before she can tell him, she disappears from the room she was asked to wait in and no one sees her again.  One of Fitz's friends falls down the steps and almost kills himself so they must all work on healing him.  And Fitz's wife becomes pregnant.  She's too old to have a baby but she's having one.  He's afraid she's losing her mind.  When he has to deliver the baby after an overlong pregnancy, he thinks maybe he's losing his.  The child is very, very small.  But she's alive and she's not handicapped, she's just little.

One of the messengers finally gets to him and tells him the Fool had a son and the bad men are determined to kill him.  Fitz tries to find the son but has no luck.  There's lots of skullduggery, Fitz has travel through the rocks that almost led to his death in the past, and he finds the Fool again but doesn't recognize him at first.

The book ends with a disaster for Fitz.  He's lost Molly to old age but he still has family.  And those who try to hurt them will have to answer to him...