Book Review: Heir of Ashes by Jina S. Bazzar

Heir of Ashes is the action packed introductory novel to The Roxanne Fosch Files. While not a perfect novel it bodes well for the future of this series.

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What I like about Bazzar’s world, is that it is extraordinarily unique to anything I’ve read. Supernatural beings are used left and right, monsters are combined, and they can all be read by their aura. Aura reading is a special ability that Roxanne has, along with several other special powers. This book reminded me of a cross between Men in Black and X-Men. The monsters span across many different regional folktales, and encompass the supernatural all over the world.
In that context, I do wish that I had a better understanding of how the supernatural world worked. It’s all eluded to, but you never get a real feeling for how the powers or the clans function. It feels like they were kind of just a back drop for the story.

The main character Roxanne, did kind of a swaying back and forth between damsel and extreme badass. I loved her, but at times wanted to punch her for her naïveté. She would go from this,

“I was a half breed, an inferior, and a woman to boot.“

A woman who was feeling a bit sorry for herself, to this,

“I was angry. I wanted to kill and dismember every single person who had dared to encage me. I wanted to keep filleting the guard, to bathe in his blood.”

I much preferred the wild version of Roxanne and hated that she could easily go from such a self-assured strong woman, to kind of a hopeless girl. It didn’t feel right, because most of the time she is a hard-core survivor.

I loved all of the action sequences in this book, and there are a lot of them. They were well-written and keep you on the edge of your seat. I kept wondering what was going to happen next, what magical being would be the next fight? It was really cool reading fight scenes with a bit of supernatural mixed in. It made the action even faster and gave everything higher stakes. There’s so much more to lose when your enemy can kick your head off no problem.

Roxanne’s life only seems to get harder at every turn, her only constant is Logan, a were vampire hybrid. I really enjoyed their friendship but not so much their romance. To me it felt like the scenes where they are friends in arms were much more natural than any of the romantic scenes. In my eyes they just felt so incompatible. Maybe it’s Roxanne’s reluctance, but I hope this something that becomes more natural as the series progresses.

The tone of this book stays relatively consistent. It felt like a long book but the fast-paced tone made it an exciting read. It keeps that quick pacing and allows you to get a lot of action wrapped between two covers. If there was something I needed in my life, it was a good action novel, and Heir of Ashes certainly delivers the action.

With everything considered, this novel earns a solid 3/5 stars. I strongly look forward to what will happen to Roxanne next. This book is set up for a sequel, and where this book leaves off has me excited for what will happen next. I will definitely recommend this to anyone who likes action and the supernatural.

A big thank you to Jina S. Bazzar for reaching out to me and supplying me with a copy of this book. It’s a fun read and deserves a following.

Let me know what you think about this book in the comments!

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