The opening novel of the Fitz and the Fool Trilogy returns to FitzChivalry Farseer decades after the conclusion of the Tawny Man Trilogy, finding him settled into a quiet life at Withywoods with Molly. Hobb takes her time with the opening - the novel's first half is deliberately unhurried, documenting the texture of an older Fitz's domestic life with a patience that makes what follows considerably more devastating. The arrival of a mysterious child and the reappearance of threads from across the full sequence draw Fitz back into a world he believed he had left behind. Fool's Assassin introduces Bee Farseer, Fitz's unexpected daughter, as a major point of view character whose perspective on the world is among the most distinctive in the sequence. The novel's second half is among the most upsetting in the Elderlings universe.