The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima is a captivating fantasy story with a classic modern twist. It blends the European Dark Ages, high school characters, small-town setting, and sword-fighting.
Definitely my kind of book.
Quick Summary
Since it IS a fantasy novel, there’s a lot of complicated world-building, magical politics, and other interesting aspects that take a really long time to explain. So I’ll just summarize the main plot and then give you my thoughts about it.
In this book, there’s a secret, underground magical society known as the Weir. Members of the Weir can be wizards, warriors, or Anaweir, which is basically nonmagical people. Wizards and warriors have these little stones next to their hearts that determine what they are.
There are these two factions called the White Rose and the Red Rose, based off the War of Roses that actually happened in England during medieval times. Every couple of years, these Roses hold a tournament when warriors are forced to fight to the death, and whichever Rose warrior wins has control over everything until the next tournament.
The hero of the story is Jack Swift, a small-town high school soccer star who is at first completely unaware of the magical society he was born into.
Eventually he finds out about all of it, and discovers that he is a Warrior. Most warriors have died out because of the tournaments, so this makes him pretty valuable to both Roses. Anyway, the whole story is him being trained by this wizard named Hastings who wants to win the tournament and then change the system forever, so that no more warriors will be killed.
There’s a bunch more to the story, but that’s the gist of it.
My Thoughts
I liked this book a lot.
It made me actually feel for the characters, not just watch them die. It made me think about what I would do in situations that Jack was put in. I like authors who do that sort of thing.
Obviously, the general theme was a little dark, but that’s medieval times for you. I’m a big fan of books set in or based on the Dark Ages, because it’s usually about a brave hero (or heroine) who dares to defy the political system and stand up for what’s right.
Its’ also a really COOL time period. Sword-fighting, jousting, tyrannical kings, beautiful princesses, impossible odds.
It’s not really the kind of book I’d read over and over again, because its’ less exciting now that I know what happens, but I enjoyed it. Highly recommended.
Thanks for reading this post. I hope it was interesting and helpful, stick around for more!!
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