I'm sad I didn't like this book. It had everything I should have loved but the writing didn't do it for me. It's not that it's badly written, it's just that the story is told in such an apathetic way that it failed to capture my interest. I didn't feel the passion or the emotions from the main character. I simply didn't care about what I was reading.

Thank you to Orbit for providing me an arc in exchange for a review!

“The Jasad Heir did burn in the Blood Summit. She was a better person. Susceptible to such notions as honor and virtue. She would have tried to save her kind. Protect them from the likes of you, even if it spelled her own destruction. But your Supreme killed her." I stroked a finger down the soldier's cheek. "And Sylvia replaced her. I do not heal. I do not lead." I tightened my hands and twisted sharply.
The snap of the soldier's neck echoed in the silent wood. "And unlike her, I am excellent at staying alive."

Yet, despite being hunted down just for having magic, Sylvia has none. It’s been bound up by her grandparents with cuffs. She can’t even use the thing that condemns her and her people to save herself.

How was it fair that Jasadis were condemned because of their magic but I couldn't even access the thing that doomed me? My magic had been trapped behind these cuffs since my childhood. I suppose my grandparents couldn't have anticipated dying and leaving the cuffs stuck on me forever.

This book was startling and poignant in its wider regard to people, politics, and power. How we are easily indoctrinated by the world we are brought up in. Interestingly, my recent coursework research has also been surrounding this, so the amount of ‘A-HAH’ and ‘SAY IT LOUDER’ moments I had were numerous.

”You ignore that each child enters a completely unique world, founded on different truths. We build our reality on the foundation our world sets for us. You entered a world where magic is corrosive and Jasadis are inherently evil. I entered one where turning a shoe into a dove made my mother laugh. Have you considered, in that infinite mind of yours, that the truly brilliant people are the ones who understand the realities we build were already built for us?"

Finally, I seem to be having a good streak with enemies-to-lovers which is normally something I don’t tend to enjoy. Like a few of my recent reads, this tantalising, murderous, stabbing slow burn had me hooked.

I would recommend this to fans of The Final Strife, Throne of Glass, and An Ember in the Ashes.

Oh welcome, new favorite—if there's one book you'll preorder, make it this one. Addictive and exciting, this Egyptian-inspired debut fantasy takes well-known Fantasy tropes and makes them *flourish* :
✔ the chosen one (who doesn't want to be chosen) and the overwhelming burden of other people’s expectations;
✔ a will they/ won't they (kill or kiss each other) slow-burn that WILL alter your brain chemistry;
✔ deadly trials filled with monstrous creatures and magic;
✔ war between political factions —their allure and their lies.

Set in an Egyptian-inspired world filled with myths, The Jasad Heir explores the themes of family, loyalty, finding oneself after being shaped by others all one's life, resilience, betrayal(s) and power, but it’s also about trauma—how it shapes us, and how we crave to raise above it anyway. I was hooked from the first page and in the rare moments I had to stop reading—because real life exists, rude—I couldn’t stop thinking about the characters I fell in love with:
✔ Sylvia, of course, our fierce and relatable heroine I came to adore—I loved her humour and her tenacity so much, and above everything, let it be known that I root for *her*;
✔ Arin, her enemy/reluctant ally/something-more-please-and-thank-you, is rigid, lonely, manipulative, brilliant, maybe evil, but oh-so-loyal… What's not to love, I’m asking?
✔ I also need to mention the supportive cast of characters because their interactions with our main characters were everything: from Effa & Marek, Silvia's friends (she'll have you know that she didn't ask for that!!!!) to Beru and Wes, Arin's guards—their scenes often made me smile so big and I’d protect Effa with my life, okay?

The last chapters kept me on the edge of my seat and now I have to ask: how am I supposed to wait for the sequel? Huh?