Book: Heir of Prophecy by Analeigh Sbrana
Reviewed by Halliday in the Books
Rating: 4.5/5
Audra was dreaming of escaping home and finding adventure, but this isn’t what she had in mind. She was thinking more along the lines of leaving her family’s inn to board a ship at the local harbor. Instead, she’s been kidnapped by a fanatical cult of fae. She isn’t the only human they’ve abducted, either. These fae say that they are seeking the Heir of Prophecy who can end the winter that has lasted Audra’s whole life.
This Heir could be any one of the dozens to hundreds they’ve captured. All of them are the right age. The best way to determine who is the Heir and who will serve the realm in other ways is by testing their magical proficiency. Imprisoned in an academy, they will need to study and practice rigorously to have any hope of surviving their trials… Or the demons the fae are at war with.
I did not want to put this one down. First of all, it’s nice to see some actual diversity in a magical academia setting. We have characters from lots of different backgrounds, and none of them feel tokenized. While there is discrimination in the book, it is never racially based. It was great to see small details normalized, like caring for various hair types. On that note, there was a truly lovely found family aspect to the book.
Something I’ve consistently liked about Sbrana’s novels so far are the very realistic progressions in relationships, even when the surrounding circumstances are fantastical. Audra has no reason to trust the male lead when she first meets him, and so she doesn’t. Yet something begins to grow anyway, and each step along the way makes sense when it happens. This is not a super spicy book, but there is on-page sexual content. Much like with Lore of the Wilds , the narration has a voice that leans toward the Young Adult genre, but the amount of explicit sex and violence definitely makes this one better suited for adults. It would fit best in a New Adult section.
Sbrana has also proven consistently good at writing grief. There is a lot of it here. A great amount arises during the events of the novel, but there is a good deal of it preexisting at the start. The author knows how to use it to shape not only her characters’ backstories, but their behaviors, and even the readers’ perception of them. In some examples it is a motivation, and for others it’s a hindrance. For many, it’s an unceasing background noise they try to ignore. It was fascinating watching it unfold.
Of course, I can’t talk about this book without mentioning its complex magic system. It had several interlocking pieces with several sources of magic used in very specific ways. There are a lot of rules about how it can be used in which realms and when. It matters whether the practitioner is fae or a demon or a god. There’s a lot of terminology for all of it, which means a there’s a lot of memorization involved. At times it feels like right studying alongside the characters as they learn about their new realm.
This book has a very full and satisfying ARC to it, but it is not the end of the story. I’m not sure where it’s going next, but I’m excited to find out when the time comes. For now, I’d recommend getting your hands on Heir of Prophecy and experience the start of Audra’s story.