Archita Mittra Reviews The Jasad Heir by Sara Hashem

The Jasad Heir, Sara Hashem (Orbit 978-0-31647-786-4, $18.99, tp, 528pp) July 2023.

Familiar tropes get rewritten with a twist in The Jasad Heir, the debut novel by Sara Hashem. Billed as an ‘‘Egyptian-inspired political fantasy,’’ it also straddles a deftly written slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance, although the political intrigue falls a little short. We fol­low the story of Sylvia/Essiya, the heir to the Jasad throne, presently hiding in a remote vil­lage as a chemist’s apprentice. Her snarky voice, suffused with anger, apathy, and black humor, eases us into the narrative, while the deliciously complicated relationship that blossoms between her and Arin, the cool and calculating military commander, is sure to keep pages turning.

Quite early on, readers realize that Essiya is a deeply conflicted person, reeling from child­hood trauma and grappling with questions of identity, community, and duty. At the age of ten she witnessed the massacre of her entire family, and she was ruthlessly tortured for the next five years, before finally escaping and taking on a new identity as Sylvia. Not only are there crucial gaps in her memory, but her magic is bound in cuffs, occasionally bursting forth but never under her control. She hails from the kingdom of Jasad, whose people wield magic to attain power; after its collapse, Jasadis are persecuted everywhere. Thus, Sylvia is a traitor not only because she has forbidden magic, but also because she’s the heir to the Jasad throne (and presumed dead by the general populace).

Determined to survive at any cost, Sylvia turns her back on her community. As a fugitive, she forges new alliances with villagers Sefa and Marek (who have their own secrets), although she’s hesitant to call anyone a ‘‘friend.’’ She doesn’t protest when Adel, a fellow baker and Jasadi, is killed before her eyes by Nizahl soldiers tasked with tracking and hunting down magic-users. Nevertheless, when she performs the death rites in an arcane language over the corpse, she attracts the attention of Arin, the Nizahl heir and commander. He selects her as his champion in an upcoming tournament. Winning it can grant her safety and a new life, untroubled by the past, even as Arin intends to use her to lure Jasadirebels to the open.

Thus, the narrative of The Jasad Heir unfolds in a familiar world where magic users are viewed with suspicion and usually killed; various politi­cal factions are vying for absolute power; and the orphaned heir slowly but inevitably is falling in love with the enemy. It’s a promising premise, but this isn’t quite The Hunger Games or An Ember in the Ashes. Not all the elements work out, and her part as champion in the tournament (which doesn’t commence until over halfway through the book) feels like a rushed afterthought. The political tensions lack the finesse of The Goblin Emperor, but the vividly described settings are somewhat reminiscent of S.A. Chakraborty’s Daevabad Trilogy.

On one hand, The Jasad Heir explores the lin­gering ramifications of childhood abuse very well – literalized in the hallucinations of reanimated corpses and traumatic memories that Sylvia finds herself trapped in, which she must defeat by summoning her magic and inner strength. On the other, it means that a lot of crucial events take place before the book begins or happen off-screen. Sylvia’s flashbacks, or the scenes where characters from her past suddenly appear, have little emotional connect for the reader. Indeed, Sylvia’s backstory affords enough material for a prequel, and at times, appears at least as interest­ing as the present narrative which is primarily concerned with her character development.

The book’s chief strength lies in the fraught romantic bond between Sylvia and Arin. The story meanders for a while as they bicker about politics, with Sylvia determined to outsmart Arin in a game of wits but not quite getting the upper-hand. In many regards, their relationship has the same energy that characterized the dynamic between Rey and Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi. Syl­via’s trauma has also made her touch-repulsed, which makes her slow journey towards healing all the more poignant. Their conversations, charged with sexual tension as they grow closer, and coupled with Sylvia’s sardonic commentary are entertaining to read, although perhaps the power imbalance between them could have been interrogated further.

Slow-burn romance, although increasingly popular, is notoriously difficult to get right (the Star Wars sequel trilogy definitely failed on that count), but Hashem does this masterfully, sprin­kling moments of desperate longing and desire like a breadcrumb trail, and withholding care­fully, even till the end – with a clever, cliffhanger conclusion that neatly sets up a sequel. It also reminded me of Seth Dickinson’s The Traitor Baru Cormorant (a similar anticolonial novel that delivers both on the romance and political intrigue) though hopefully, Hashem’s upcoming books will not be as tragic.

Overall, The Jasad Heir is a decent debut. Despite some shortcomings, it offers a thrilling, sweeping, chaotic love story, perfect for book­worms who crave snarky, character-driven prose and slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romances.

This review and more like it in the June 2023 issue of Locus.

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