Premise

The continuation of FitzChivalry's story, Royal Assassin follows his recovery from the events of Assassin's Apprentice and his growing into the role of an assassin.

The highlights of what really work and come together in this novel are:
  • The character's are (sometimes frustratingly) authentic, and deeply flawed.
  • The relationships between characters are incredibly organic.
  • It's very very easy to get into the head of Fitz.

The Standout: Fitz & Verity
I'm choosing to highlight the relationship between Fitz & Verity here because they truly are some of the best moments in the books for me.

Verity is the third real mentor Fitz has in the books and while I love the characterizations of Burrich and Chade, Verity seems the first one to treat Fitz as a man in a lot of cases.

A Small Criticism
The characters being frustratingly believable. There are times when I'm deeply frustrated with decisions made by some of the more powerful adult characters in the novel, predominantly Chade but Verity as well.

Without spoiling too much, the villain of the story being comically evil is actually refreshing, but he isn't taken seriously as a villain by those with the power to stop him.

The reason I leave this as a small criticism after giving it a lot of thought is because it's an unfortunate mirror of the reality we live in as well. Those we might depend on to stop evil from happening may have (often poor) reasons for being hesitant to act swiftly. 

Final Thoughts
Royal Assassin is genuinely one of the best books I've ever read. It's another slow burn book following up Assassin's Apprentice, but that seems to just be Hobb's style of writing. The worldbuilding is drip fed slowly but is very interesting, the characters are beyond the best I've read in fantasy, and the book is near impossible to put down.