Author: Cinda Williams Chima
# of Pages: 455 (paperback)
Genre: YA, Fantasy
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Synopsis: They called it the Thorn Hill Massacre-the brutal attack on a once-thriving Weir community. Though Jonah Kinlock lived through it, he did not emerge unscathed: like the other survivors Jonah possesses unique magical gifts that set him apart from members of the mainline guilds. At seventeen, Jonah has become the deadliest assassin in Nightshade, a network that hunts the undead. Emma Claire Greenwood grew up worlds away, raised by a grandfather who taught her music rather than magic. An unschooled wild child, she runs the streets until the night she finds her grandfather dying, gripping a note warning Emma that she might be in danger. The clue he leaves behind leads Emma into Jonah's life-and a shared legacy of secrets and lingering questions.
Review: This shouldn't be part of the Heir Chronicles.
The series should have stayed a trilogy. Jonah and Emma are completely new characters. Although some of characters from the previous three books appear in the book, reading the first three books in the series is not at all necessary to read this book. For those of you who are wondering whether you should re-read the first three to maximize enjoyment of this book, don't bother. I haven't read the first three books in years but the characters from the previous books don't play a big enough role in this story to make a reread worth it.
I'm a HUGE fan of Cinda Williams Chima's Seven Realms series, but wasn't as big of a fan of the Heir Chronicles. The reason why she decided to add two more books that are for the most part unrelated stories (other than it takes place in the same world as the previous three) is beyond me.
The first issue is the third person POV switching. There's only two protagonists, so I was expecting a somewhat even distribution of chapters between these two characters. However, it seemed like there were way more chapters with Jonah than Emma (which made me feel like I knew less about Emma than Jonah).
The second issue is the poor character development. Emma is suppose to be a strong and independent teen with some delinquent tendencies. However, since there isn't a lot of focus on her in the book (because she didn't get as many chapters as Jonah), the author tells the reader these qualities rather than shows them through actions. Other characters (and sometimes Emma herself) say that she doesn't like going to school but emphasize how she isn't dumb (she's one of those types who doesn't think what she learns is school will be relevant to her in regular life). The reader is suppose to appreciate her spunk and how she "isn't like other girls." This character type is incredibly overused, especially in stories you'd find on Wattpad and/or on fan fiction sites. To top it off, I didn't buy her character portrayal; she seemed fake to me.
The third issue is the weak plot. This is half of a book; nothing is resolved in this book, which pretty much forces the reader to read The Sorcerer Heir if they want any kind of closure. It's not even that the book ends with a cliffhanger; when I finished the book I was thinking "This is it?!" The story just stops without any conclusion whatsoever. My theory; this story should have only taken up one book, but to make more money, it was split into two.
The fourth and final problem; the romance sucked. It was incredibly predicable and unpleasant to read. If it wasn't obvious by the general trend of YA books, the two protagonists Jonah and Emma are the couple under fire here. There's too much sexual tension between two characters who barely know each other. But sex sells so why not right? (I'm not saying there's sex scenes in this book; there aren't). I'm pretty sure most people would be put off if a guy they just met started spooning with them, but apparently that is not the case with Emma.
I almost gave this book 3 stars because I was biased toward the author. However, I was comparing it to City of Bones (by Cassandra Clare), and I realized this book might actually be WORSE.
For those of you who thought Warrior Heir (and/or the following two books) was mediocre or worse, don't waste your time with this book. If you're new to Cinda Williams Chima's books, start with the Seven Realms series instead. If you don't fall into either of those categories and you haven't read any of the Heir Chronicles books, start with Warrior Heir instead of this one and then refer back to this review after you've read it. Overall, I think it's not worth the read.
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