Review: Rogue Community College by David R. Slayton

Title: Rogue Community College

Series: The Liberty House: Book One

Author: David R. Slayton

Length: 336 Pages

Category: New Adult Fantasy

Rating: 5 Stars

At a Glance: This beautiful, exceptional heartbreaker of a book. If reading through tears is a favorite pastime, Rogue Community College is the perfect trigger for it.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: Isaac Frost is an assassin. Raised in the Graveyard of the cruel and mysterious Undertaker, he has mastered the deadly art of the knife and the skill of survival, together with scores of others just like him—young men taken from their families to become the most infamous killers throughout the realms of elves and humans. But Isaac is unique: a single drop of another’s blood can confer upon him the knowledge and power of friend and foe alike.

After crossing paths with the elf queen Argent, Isaac is sent to a strange magical school for wayward practitioners in the hopes that he can learn where he—and his unusual talent—fit in the world. Isaac is charmed by the school’s chaotic nature and finds himself unexpectedly drawn to Vran, a Sea Elf haunted by secret knowledge.

But Vran isn’t the only one with secrets, and Isaac’s arrival is no accident. The Undertaker has charged him with infiltrating the school for the purpose of destroying it utterly, and his future rests on completing his mission—before the Undertaker takes matters into his own hands.

Review: “Everyone should see places like that, hear the stories, the history. Maybe then they’d remember.”

David R. Slayton revisits the world Adam Binder helped build in the White Trash Warlock series, focusing his attention, this time, on Argent, Silver, Vran, and Isaac—a new student at Rogue Community College. But Isaac’s purpose there is far more than a simple education. Isaac is a useful tool, though it takes time for him to suss out how and why. Oh, and he falls in love with Vran, a Lost One, in the process. Complications abound in this superlative addition to this -verse.

This beautiful, exceptional heartbreaker of a book. If reading through tears is a favorite pastime, Rogue Community College is the perfect trigger for it. Everything, up to and including the point of the anguish of love, sacrifice, and loss, is so worth the journey and the aftermath. There is intrigue and danger, to be sure, but the payoff for all the suspense is watching Isaac find love, family, and a place where he belongs, a place and people who choose him. He finds truths and perhaps some closure on his journey, and he discovers a certain peace in knowing where he came from. It’s not happiness, not even close, but rather more the need to absorb those truths of his beginning in order to start from scratch and make a new present and future. He won’t do it alone. But he will do it with a heavy heart. I hope that’s only a short-term affliction, for both Isaac and me.

The building of empathy is foundational to Isaac and his connection to the people who matter to him. His world wasn’t made smaller by leaving the only home and brotherhood he’d ever know. His world expanded to include the people he was meant to betray. Of course, that betrayal is thwarted not by Isaac’s weakness but by the unbreakable bonds of connection. There may be no I in team, as the old saying goes, but there is an I in friendship, and Isaac both befriends and becomes a friend to his schoolmates in ways he could never have imagined when his assignment began.

One of the many hallmarks of David R. Slayton’s work is his full-throated investment in both his characters and the worldbuilding. Neither suffers under attention to the other; they only complement to build a stronger platform to secure his readers’ connection to what’s happening along the way, as well as in the outcome of the story.

Isaac’s journey isn’t anywhere near complete yet. In fact, he has even more impetus to fight, to go where others may fear to tread, and to find what he might not yet be aware he’s seeking. I’m all in for the adventure.