Cover Art! 'The Sentinel Mage' (Emily Gee)

I don't read enough books from Solaris at the moment so will be picking this one up to give it a go, can't say that the cover is all that inspiring though... Check it out,

Just a little bit of added colour would have made this a lot more eye catching. As it is... There's sand, we get it! It's very well drawn but the effect they were looking for was lost on me; I like more than one thing to look at on a cover and that's not the case here at all...

The blurb looks familiar as well but with a hint of danger that has piqued my interest,

In a distant corner of the Seven Kingdoms, an ancient curse festers and grows, consuming everything in its path. Only one man can break it: Harkeld of Osgaard, a prince with mage’s blood in his veins. But Prince Harkeld has a bounty on his head - and assassins at his heels.

Innis is a gifted shapeshifter. Now she must do the forbidden: become a man. She must stand at Prince Harkeld’s side as his armsman, protecting and deceiving him. But the deserts of Masse are more dangerous than the assassins hunting the prince. The curse has woken deadly creatures, and the magic Prince Harkeld loathes may be the only thing standing between him and death.

 

Assassins are cool and that's all there is to it, I'm after something with a bit of a rush to it and a guy with a bounty on his head looks like it could do the trick (even though it's a plot that's been done before). As I said in another post, I've never read anything by Emily Gee although I know she wrote 'Thief with no Shadow' and 'The Laurentine Spy'. Has anyone here read these books? Were they any good? Let me know what you thought...