Blood of Heirs (The Coraidic Sagas Book 1) by self published author, Alicia Wanstall-Burke, is a book I recently picked up on Kindle.
It follows two main characters from completely separate backgrounds. Lidan Tolak is the first of her father’s daughters, with no male heir in sight until one of her father’s wives falls pregnant, and the threat of a brother to take away all her inheritance looms over everything. Lidan’s world is full of feudal clans that barter and trade, arranging marriages for alliances and so on. It kind of gave me a Viking vibe, but not, if that makes sense.
To me, her character was very interesting, and not quite your typical girl boss character who takes up arms and is great at everything. She struggled to get good, but to be fair, it seemed fairly easy to her, but her character and her struggles were still an interesting read for me. The conflict between her and trying to convince her father that she is a worthy heir was well done and made me want to keep reading.
The other character we follow is Ranoth, and I believe he is a duke’s son. In a part of the country where magic is considered a curse, and anyone possessing it will be put to death, Ran discovers that he has the spark of magic. His father seems to absolutely hate magic users, so he orders his own son’s death, causing Ran to flee out into the wilds.
His story of escaping with his life was just as intriguing, and in addition to his sudden use of magic, he’s plagued by the ghost of a young woman, whose mysterious presence is a clue as to why he first obtained his spark of magic.
Amid all of this, there are strange, undead man-like creatures that have weapons sewn into their very flesh that start plaguing the whole continent.
For me, the mystery behind these zombie-like creatures is the most interesting, because I’ve always been interested in zombie stories, and the reasons behind their existence. I’ve read and watched several undead stories, and am always curious in seeing how these dead walkers came about. Whatever the storytellers come up with is fun for me. I like new and fresh (for me, at least) ideas about the existence of zombies.
The whole story was well-paced, and the ending of book one introduced new problems to be solved as to keep the reader reading, but the overall goals of that book were accomplished, at least in my mind, and some things wrapped up. So it was a good example of an ending for a story continuation. Unlike other stories I’ve read where the end of the book literally just felt like the end of a chapter, where almost none of the main goals were met. (That is how not to end a book)
Overall, this was a very good book, and this first one was intriguing enough for me to continue on to the second book in the trilogy, and I’m hoping for a fantastic ending, because I seem to be very harsh on endings, and It’s really hard for me to find a smashing ending to a series or story, but to be fair, endings are HARD. But Alicia Wanstall-Burke is an author I’ll be keeping a lookout for if I ever need to read a book I know will be fairly good.
Check out her book. Blood of Heirs