Ana, a princess in a vaguely Russian country, has been on the run for a year after being framed for killing her father. Her last hope to find the man who framed her is a conman known as Ramson, currently held deep in an impenetrable jail. Ramson has his own reasons for seeking revenge on former friends, and what follows is a race across the continent as they work, sometimes in concert and sometimes against each other, towards their two goals.
Let's get this out of the way first. If you've been in the YA book community over the last six months - I'm writing this in November 19 - you've heard at least something about the Blood Heir controversy. Early readers of the novel claimed that it was anti-Black. Amelie pulled the novel and reworked it, and this review is based on the reworked version. I haven't read the original and do not take a side in that argument.
I can tell you that nothing in this novel made me think it was a thinly veiled version of anything other than the world wide phenomenon of human trafficking. People with powers, called Affinities in this series, are bound under forced labour contracts and threatened with drugs that supress their Affinities. They're mostly taken as children and conditioned to be too afraid to fight back. Apart from one character who is described as very pale, I didn't notice any overabundance of skin colours being used.
Caveat: I'm not a very visual reader - descriptions have to be pretty overt for me to imagine them - and I tend not to read looking for symbolism and hidden meanings. I just like a good story. I'm happy to be corrected on my understanding here.
With that out of the way...
This story started off slowly, and I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it. However, after the first few chapters it took off and I was hooked. It's a great adventure story, with eough new elements introduced to keep things exciting without overwhelming the reader. I did feel like we didn't get to know the palace denizens very well - a side effect of only meeting them through flashback, but it meant that when we met one of them by surprise later on, it didn't resonate the way it could and should have.
Two tiny personal notes, that probably won't matter to most people. Having the glossary at the end instad of the front meant that I'd already either figured out the words or given up on understanding them by the time I found it; and I kept reading Ramson as Ransom and having to mentally correct myself. Such tiny things!
I'm very much looking forward to reading the next books in the series. I hope this one does well!
BLOOD HEIR is the first book in an epic new series about a princess hiding a dark secret and the conman she must trust to clear her name of murder.
Princess Anastacya Mikhailov of Cyrilia has lived her life in safety, hidden behind palace walls. But when she is framed for her father's brutal murder, she must leave behind everything she has ever known to find his killer and prove her innocence. And there is only one person corrupt enough to help her - Ramson Quicktongue. A cunning, silver-tongued crime lord of the Cyrilian underworld, Ramson has his own sinister plans - though he might have met his match in Ana. Because in this story, the princess might be the most dangerous player of them all.
No comments:
Post a Comment