Starfire's Heir

5⭐️2🌶

I finished the ARC of Starfire's Heir last night.  It was so good!  It has everything a good epic fantasy should have.  Lexa is just a regular girl living in a small village, minding her own business when she decides to step across the border of her small town.  She feels something shift inside her body and the world as she knows it.  She races back home to find a stranger talking with her grandmother, the only family she has; the woman who raised her.  Well, Lexa is the lost princess to a kingdom inside the Veil and she has powerful magic and is destined to save her people; there's a prophesy and everything.  The man in her kitchen is her Champion, Griff, and he's been searching for her for years.  Her grandmother had warded the village and when Lexa stepped across the border Griff, was able to sense her and came immediately to take her "home".  At her grandmother's insistence she reluctantly goes with Griff.  Griff is a highly trained warrior and also has magic.  He can teleport.  He teleports them to just outside the palace walls.  Teleporting is disorienting at first and Lexa doesn't fare well that first trip.  Griff is there for her right from the first moment.  She finds him to be a grounding force.  Everyone knows she's come back and the Regent; her grandfather and a whole crowd of courtiers are there.  She can't block out thoughts of other people yet, she just found out she has magic that morning, so she becomes completely overwhelmed immediately.  Finn, Griff's twin brother is also in this crowd.  They both see its too much for her and Griff teleports the three of them away to a clearing in the woods.  Finn is much more talkative than Griff, he answers some of Lexa's questions and helps her get her bearings before they go back to the palace.  This more or less remains a theme for a good part of the book.  Griff and Finn look out for Lexa, make sure she's okay in this new environment and help her train both her combat skills and magic.  I don't want to spoil too much of the story but its amazing.  There is a force of darkness.  If people are touched even once they are turned and become corrupted.  The Veil is protection from this evil darkness and the Veil is failing.  Lexa slowly learns that basically nothing she was told as a child was necessarily true.  

Spoiler ahead:  Her parents didn't die in an accident, they sacrificed themselves to strengthen the Veil and buy her time to grow up.  Griff and Lexa develope an affection for eachother.  They spend the first three quarters of the book denying it exists or pushing eachother away.

The yearning in this story is off the charts, the literary edging is also intense, the only book that was worse was In the Veins of the Drowning.  The slow-burn was very slow but once it broke it was very very good.  I loved every minute of this book.  Lexa is snarky, sarcastic and irreverent.  The banter in this book was amazing and had me laughing out loud for real.  I'm floored as usual that this is yet another debut novel.  These indie authors are absolutely knocking these stories out of the park.  I'm so glad I got the ARC for this one and I need the next book immediately!!  Check out Griff and Lexa's story on the 23rd when it comes out.