The Jasad Heir

I thoroughly enjoyed the political intrigue, the enemies-to-lovers (though, I definitely believe Arin was quite smitten with her (Jasadi women seem to be his type), but realistically, she's fallen for a guy helping ethnically cleanse her people; I wonder if book two will confront this), the cast of characters, and Sylvia's internal struggles. I'm a little scared about book two - we're jumping headfirst into the chaos.

also, magical blue eyes still has authors in a chokehold

Ten years ago, the kingdom of Jasad burned. Its magic outlawed; its royal family murdered down to the last child. At least, that’s what Sylvia wants people to believe.

The lost Heir of Jasad, Sylvia never wants to be found. She can’t think about how Nizahl’s armies laid waste to her kingdom and continue to hunt its people—not if she wants to stay alive. But when Arin, the Nizahl Heir, tracks a group of Jasadi rebels to her village, staying one step ahead of death gets trickier.

In a moment of anger Sylvia’s magic is exposed, capturing Arin’s attention. Now, to save her life, Sylvia will have to make a deal with her greatest enemy. If she helps him lure the rebels, she’ll escape persecution.

A deadly game begins. Sylvia show more can’t let Arin discover her identity even as hatred shifts into something more. Soon, Sylvia will have to choose between the life she wants and the one she left behind. The scorched kingdom is rising, and it needs a queen. show less

A funny thing happened on my way to review The Jasad Heir by Sara Hashem. I seem to have forgotten what it was about. I remember loving it and being excited for the second book. But I could not remember the plot or the characters. Even the synopsis was not enough to jog my memory. I had to go back to the e-galley and reread a few chapters before I recalled the plot and the two main characters.

Upon finishing The Jasad Heir, I immediately rated it five out of five stars. I can look back and see that I flew through its 528 page, reading it whenever I had a moment to spare. I remember that my emotions were all over the place while reading it. I felt all Sylvia's anger and trauma (SO much trauma). While I expected the ending, I enjoyed show more every minute of getting there and didn't mind that there will be at least a year-long wait to find out what happens next. And then, I proceeded to forget all the details.

Now that I refreshed my memory, I could write about how Ms. Hashem makes it so easy to understand Sylvia's reticence to get involved with anything political. If I had her childhood experiences and memories, I would want to be left alone just like her. I could also say that Ms. Hashem makes it too easy to understand Arin's point of view. Their push and pull relationship makes so much sense based on what they've been told or experienced in their young lives.

Unfortunately, that's all I can write. I don't remember the setting. I faintly recall the world-building and different territories. I have no memory of the trials Sylvia undergoes. I wish I did because I know I loved it.

Novels I forget almost immediately, like The Jasad Heir, are difficult to rate and recommend. On the one hand, I know I loved it. I may not recall much, but I do remember how I felt while reading and after finishing it. On the other hand, I think any highly-rated book should be memorable. Something should stick with you. Maybe the fact that my emotional state sticks with me is a sign that it still deserves my initial impression of being an outstanding book.

Even though I may not recall any details or much more beyond the basic plot, I still won't hesitate to recommend The Jasad Heir to anyone. I will vote for it for any year-end best-of lists. And I won't hesitate to read the sequel, fervently hoping that someone writes a detailed synopsis for The Jasad Heir between now and then. I guess the fact that I am comfortable doing all that says all there needs to be said about it. show less

I read this early because of a friend's recommendation, and oh, am I oh so glad I did. The story is so insidiously wicked. The points of the plots keep being parcelled out bit by bit by bit and what you see isn't always what is happening. Good hooks. At times you feel for the enemies. And the ending is the cliffhanger you expected, but not for the reasons you thought. So good. Go out and read it!!

Pub Date: July 18

An excellent beginning to a fantasy series! I liked it so much I pre-ordered before I even finished the book and I am excited for next in the series. I also wanted to support the author who wrote this while she was in law school which is totally bad-ass.

It is a fantasy series but I found the world building to come gradually and at times that made sense instead of front-loading like a lot of first of fantasy series do. I also found just the right amount of tension to move things along and keep things interesting. It is mostly told from one point of view but there are a few small sections from another point of view which I thought really helped with understanding the character and motive without being too heavy with it.

The people of Jasad believe the entire royal family died when Nazahl invaded and burned down their kingdom. This assumption and Sylvia’s magic binding cuffs conceal her true identity. Sylvia’s plans to remain anonymous may be foiled when Arin of Nizahl tracks a group of Jasadi rebels to her village. With the promise of freedom and protection, Sylvia agrees to be a champion for the Heir of Nizahl.

Sara Hashem’s debut novel The Jasad Hair is riveting from beginning to end. Once finished the reader wants to start over because there are just enough questions to create readers itch (for the second book). The world building was thorough including politics, history, and hierarchy. Sara skillfully includes topics of: genocide, anxiety, show more abuse, loss, homelessness, racism, and colonialism. show less

Another interesting one and I have to say that I think this rating is far more subjective than my others typically are because there are a lot of great aspects to this book. It's just that the aspects that I value most have fallen by the wayside in this one.
While this book is technically just another enemy-to-lovers fantasy romance built from all the same core building blocks, there is so much more to this story than calling it that feels like a disservice and doesn't properly represent the breadth of the story.
It explores a large number of its different fictional cultures. The world isn't just a thin veneer covering the emptiness of the background like in most of these books.
The book also tries to explore different characters beyond a show more cardboard cutout characterization and actually tries to create different and nuanced individuals.
But now the dreaded "but" has to follow.
The book is positively stuffed full of tools the author uses copiously to steer her characters along the plot she wants.
This leads to a ton of very forced and unbelievable situations which are still technically covered by the infinitely flexible rules the author has set up for herself to excuse basically anything.
The main tool she uses for this is the MC's blocked magic which is only blocked if it suits the author and can be arbitrarily powerful without any good reason. It's somehow emotion-related as these things so often are but this leads to lots of obvious inconsistencies that I could point to and say "Why did or didn't her magic work in this other situation then?"
Even though the author already has built herself an excuse for almost anything with this there are nonetheless a whole collection of other similar tools she also uses for the same purpose. I guess the idea was that if you have multiple excuses it's not as obvious as if you always fall back on the same one?
Anyway, I find this kind of thing incredibly frustrating and it very much takes me out of a story.

The second major enjoyment killer for me was the MC herself. I seem to encounter the flaw I am going to describe constantly recently. Maybe this is a more prevalent flaw in more recent writing but maybe I just got unlucky and stumbled across a chain of books like this.
The flaw I am talking about is the MC starting out as this hardened, broken, and cynical outcast who is in hiding, isolation, retirement, or whathaveyou. I like this kind of character very much. It provides plenty of opportunity for nuance and ambiguous morals in combination with emotional trauma and/or suffering which always draws me in.
The trend I was alluding to earlier is the tendency of these types of characters instead of getting wiser and more mature they devolve, they get more naive, and typically also become outright stupid.
I don't mind these types of characters recognizing that there are people worth fighting for, and that nihilism is a dead end you have to escape from. That if you don't try and give it your all you have no right to complain or whatever. All this good stuff. You know what I am talking about. But if in the process the MC keeps making one obviously stupid decision after another with this motivation as the excuse, typically to get the plot moving to wherever the author wants it to go, it completely disconnects me from the MC which is the worst thing that can happen with these kinds of books.
I just can not understand this tendency of authors to have a mature and world-weary character forget about all the painful lessons they learned over their lifetime and become this blue-eyed goodie-two-shoes with no cunning or understanding at all.
I know the central point of a story like this is the romance and not the political intrigue surrounding it but I need the surrounding to fit together consistently to not be constantly distracted from the purpose of the story by inconsistencies and contradictions.

Another more basic problem is that the book sometimes describes chains of reasoning that have no logical connections whatsoever. It reads kind of like "The sun is shining today therefore I have to buy 2 new chewing gums, sacrifice a goat, and then dig a hole" or something like this to me. This is of course an exaggeration, but even without being that extreme, unconnected chains of reasoning like this still break my immersion with this "huh?" moment where the only way of explaining what I just read requires me to look at the meta-motivation of the author for writing it.
This is of course not at all what I want as a reader. Thinking of the author's motivation to excuse inconsistencies and illogical leaps in logic or emotion is just completely immersion-breaking.

And this is what essentially killed my enjoyment of this book despite it having so many commendable characteristics that should place it above most other books in the fantasy romance genre.
It is a sad example of how the amount of effort put into a thing doesn't necessarily correlate with the quality of the result even given a higher skill level.
It pains me to say but this could have been a better story by being worse at fantasy.
I think this book suffers from a wrong allocation of resources. By investing in such an extensive and ambitious world, the book has not enough juice left to build a consistent plot inside it. show less