HEIR is book one in the Heir Duology by New York Times bestselling and National Book Award-winning author Sabaa Tahir.  Tahir notes that although this is a spinoff duology, the reader does not have to have first read the An Ember in the Ashes series, which I was glad to see because I did not complete the whole four-book series.  Tahir cites some Ashes Easter eggs in HEIR. 

HEIR is billed as Young Adult.  While the characters are young adults, the tenor of the story does not feel particularly young adult to me.  HEIR is also described as high fantasy [Not sure I agree- Do I really think the stakes of the conflict are world-ending?!]  Certainly, there is a large cast of characters which can be hard to keep up on and an overly complex plot, both of which feel high fantasy to me.  There are three main characters in HEIR and the chapter Point of Views alternate between the three.  We have Aiz, Sirsha and Quil.

Aiz grew up in an orphanage in the Kegari slums. Aiz is subsumed by her desire for vengeance against the aristocrat who burned her orphanage down and sets off to discover her people’s imprisoned goddess to save them all. Sirsha is an exiled and destitute magical tracker who speaks to the earth, air, and water to trace her marks. She accepts a contract to hunt down a child murderer but then falls for a “charismatic and inconvenient fugitive” who crosses her path.  Quil is the crown prince of the Empire who doesn’t want his impending reign.  A rival kingdom threatens the Empire, and Quil and his few friends must escape to fight from outside.  Quil is the character that I dislike the least.  I hate Aiz, and Sirsha leaves me feeling tepid.  There is an awkward romance with a forced marriage as part of the plot.

We don’t see any overlap between Quil and Sircha until 26% of the way into the story.  However, the first glimmers of Quil and Aiz interacting don’t come until 43% into the book!  These delays left me scratching my head for the first quarter to half of the book, which I found frustrating rather than tantalizing.  There is a super slow build to the story, and it may take quite some time to be engaged.  I don’t want to say too much about the story because there are all kinds of tricksy bits that I don’t want to ruin for the reader.  Tahir’s HEIR also ends on a cliffhanger, so you’ve been warned!