Blood Heir by Amélie Wen Zhao
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The first time I laid eyes on a copy of Blood Heir, many moons ago, my first reaction was, I kind of want the girl on this cover to kidnap me and hold me hostage…
Instead, I bought the book and it remained hostage on my shelves since 2019, which seems like cruel and unusual punishment for this poor book.
Recently, I’ve had some flops for reads and I needed a change of pace. I decided it was finally time to give this beauty a go, and I’m so happy I did. This could turn into a full-series binge for me.
In this story we meet Ana and Ramson. Ana, full name Anastacya Mikhailov, is the crown princess of the Cyrilian Empire. She’s also an Affinite, individuals who have the ability to control the world around them. Ana’s special ability is that she’s able to control people’s blood.
Her ability has always been kept a secret, but after her father is murdered, she’s the main suspect. She needs to find her father’s actual killer in order to clear her name, and more importantly, save her life.
The world is grossly corrupt though, and Ana’s gonna need some help. She cannot succeed navigating her way outside the kingdom walls on her own.
That’s where Ramson comes in, a cunning crime lord with an agenda of his own. He may have met his match in Ana, and we all know where that leads…
This was such a nice change of pace for me. I haven’t read a Fantasy story in a while and I found this one very easy to engage with. I loved learning about the main characters and the way they came together, having an important mission, was a delightful set-up.
Every time I would put this down, to go to work, or you know, do other adult life things, I was always excited to come back to it. That’s a sign of a great book.
It was adorbs watching Ana and Ramson catching feelings. Him especially, because he was such a tough guy and I think his attachment to Ana came as a real surprise to him.
I liked Ana’s ambivalence to it a bit as well. She wasn’t swooning over this guy. She did have a job and she needed to get it done, but you could tell, even if she couldn’t right away, that the attachment was going in both directions.
I wouldn’t call it a Romance story though, so don’t get scared away if that’s not for you. I’m not crazy about a lot of romance in my Fantasy either. This is def more about the magic system and politics. At least it felt that way to me.
Speaking of, the magic is so interesting. The idea of the Affinites and all the various powers they wielded, it was a cool concept. I thought the author executed it well. It was easy to understand and opened up a lot of potential powers.
The politics and world are really built out in the second half, when we end up learning a lot more about Ana and her family. There were some jaw-dropping developments.
I would say this succeeded in creating a solid foundation as the 1st-book. There’s still a lot of room to grow, particularly in the world/politics, so I’m super excited to start the 2nd-book, Red Tigress and follow along with all that.
Overall, I felt this was really strong. My favorite element was the magic system, but I can’t deny how attached I’ve become to both Ana and Ramson.
This book has proven again why it’s so important to never ignore your backlist. There’s a lot of books lurking on the shelves that are real winners. Don’t neglect them. Have a peek. You may just find one like I did!
