Last month, I read The Seven Realms series by Cinda Williams Chima. This month I moved back to the first series published by this author, The Heir Chronicles. This series and The Seven Realms were published concurrently, but the first book of The Heir Chronicles came out three years before The Demon King, the first book in The Seven Realms. The first book in this older series, The Warrior Heir, is set in the modern day world, and follows a young man named Jack, who has peculiar abilities that no one can fully explain to him.
Summary
Jackson Swift of Trinity, Ohio was raised completely normally. He went to a normal school, he had a normal mom, and he liked sailing with his dad in the summers. Everything was perfectly normal, thank you very much - until one day, he forgot the medication he'd always taken for his "heart" and some weird stuff started happening. Soon, he was tracked down by two secret factions at war with one another, both of whom seek to use him as a pawn in their own twisted games.
Initial Reaction
I enjoyed reading this book. At times it moved too slowly and at times too fast, and the plot twist was kind of obvious, but it was a fun read. As in The Seven Realms there is a parallel in this series to our own world and supremecist groups - the Wizards in the book mirror white supremecists in the modern day, saying that all other magical groups - and especially the non-magical people - are below the wizards, and are only good to be servants. At first I found this way of portraying the villains in the story to be rather flat - even the bad guys think they're doing the right thing in most cases - but then I realized the parallel to white supremecy and it all made sense. The characters were not amazingly well developed and the plot jerked around sometimes rather than having a nice flow, but overall it was engaging.
What's Important?
The thing that stood out to me the most about The Warrior Heir was the thematic material and the parallel to modern-day racism. The plot was also interesting, and unlike other YA fantasy books I have read. It didn't follow a plot line I was used to and so it kept me on my toes - most of the time. There was one plot twist that I saw coming a mile off, but that might have just been me.
Rating
I give this book 3.5 stars overall. I'm not awarding it any spicy peppers because there is no spice (which is good in a young adult read!)
It was fun to read and engaging, but the characters were a bit flat and the plot somewhat uneven, which is why it comes down to three and a half stars. I would recommend this book to young adults, maybe 12 and up, who are interested in fantasy and real-world magic.