The Jasad Heir

 By: Sara Hashem

Location: FIC HAS

Genre: Romantasy, Magic, High Fantasy, Egypt

“One day, I would stand trial before the spirits of my dead. One day, the bodies I never buried would call upon me to answer for my sins. One day, but not today.”

At ten-years-old, the Heir of Jasad flees a massacre that takes her entire family.

At fifteen, she buries her first body.

At twenty, the clock is ticking on Sylvia's third attempt at a home. Nizahl's armies have laid waste to Jasad and banned magic across the four remaining kingdoms. Fortunately, Sylvia's magic is as good at playing dead as she is.

When the Nizahl Heir tracks a group of Jasadis to Sylvia’s village, the quiet life she's crafted unravels. Calculating and cold, Arin's tactical brilliance is surpassed only by his hatred for magic. After a mistake exposes Sylvia’s magic to Arin, he offers her an escape: compete as Nizahl’s Champion in the Alcalah tournament and win immunity from persecution. In exchange, Arin will use her as bait to draw out the Jasadis he’s hunting.

To win the deadly Alcalah, Sylvia must work with Arin to free her trapped magic, all while staying a step ahead of his efforts to uncover her identity. As the two grow closer, Sylvia is thrust into the world of cunning royals and double-dealing politics. The Jasadi groups escalate the fight to make Sylvia the face of their movement, and Sylvia realizes winning her freedom as Nizahl’s Champion means destroying any chance of reuniting Jasad under her banner.


The scorched kingdom is rising again, and Sylvia will have to choose between the life she's earned, and the one she left behind.

The Jasad Heir has everything I love in a YA romantasy. I’m so glad I buddy read this because I was screaming through most of it. Between the layered and nuanced characters, the twisty plot, the complex world-building and political intrigue, and that fantastic romance, there was a lot to gush and ruminate about! There are also some really thought-provoking messages and questions posed throughout the story about what makes a monster, how people define themselves, and what we owe our country and our culture. Julie