Will an Old Secret Foil Jax’s Ascension?
As I continue to work my way through the Court of Mystery series, I’m really wondering where things are going. Which, I guess, is the point of a series, right? But we’ve developed several strong ongoing storylines, and Harrowed Heir was another chance to see just how complicated Jax’s life has become.
If you are new to the series, you really do need to start with The Ducal Detective, the first story to feature Duchess Jacqueline Arienta Xavier, Jax to her friends. She is the leader of a kingdom in a fictional realm. Over the course of the series, she’s found herself involved in quite a few murders and started trying to reform life for everyone in not only her kingdom but the surrounding kingdoms as well. That’s not sitting well with everyone, and Jax is now leading a coalition facing war.
As this book opens, Jax is barely healed from the wounds she received in the previous book, but she is setting out to the Dutchy of Hestes to claim the vacant throne. When she arrives, Jax learns that the nearby Academy has just unearth a centuries old document that indicates that Hestes’s throne might belong to another. Naturally, she goes to investigate, but things get complicated quickly when she arrives. Who is behind the chaos? What does the document mean?
Again, I can’t emphasize enough the need to read this series in order. There are spoilers, plus you need the full background to fully appreciate everything going on here. This is more of a serialized story that I was expecting when I started the series. Not that I’m complaining, but it makes jumping in here hard.
As usual, the beginning of the book starts us off with some catch up, but it doesn’t drag on too long before Jax is off on her new adventure. It helps that the political drama is as important as the mystery these days, so when we spend time dealing with that, it doesn’t feel like it is slowing us down getting to the main mystery. And that main mystery? It was good and kept me guessing all the way to the end.
There’s a large cast of characters by this point in the series, but some of them are just regulated to off page activities or cameos. As much as I would like to see more of these characters, they would just have slowed things down. The series regulars we get are entertaining. It took quite a while for the new characters, aka the suspects, to stand out to me, but they got there.
At this point, there are a couple of ongoing threads I’m not a fan of. I’m being vague to avoid spoilers for the series. I thought we’d put one to bed in the last book, but it is still very much alive here. It really needs to be resolved at this point, and the longer it does on, the more frustrated I get. Jax is developing a bit of a character flaw as well, and I’m curious to see where that is going to wind up. I think it could make for some explosive scenes in a few books and some great character growth, but I’m not sure if that is what we are going to get or not. In the meantime, I really do want to talk some sense into Jax.
Harrowed Heir will entertain fans of this saga as they travel with political and mysterious road with Jax. I’ll be back soon to see what happens next.
Enjoy the rest of the Court of Mystery novels.
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