Blog Tour Book Review: Odreil’s Heirs by Hayley Reese Chow

Happy Saturday my lovely peeps🐥!

Today is my stop on the blog tour for Odriel’s Heirs by Hailey Reese Chow. One of the final round books I got to read as a panelist for BBNYA, back in December, I really enjoyed this one! Shout out and a major thank you to both The Write Reads and BBNYA for giving me a chance to read this. Odriel’s Heirs came in 5th place in the 2021 BBNYA and I’m excited to share the review with you all!

Book Description

Title: Odriel’s Heirs
Series: Odriel’s Heirs Book # 1
Author: Hayley Reese Chow
Publisher: Self Published
Length: 178 Pages
Date Published: March 1, 2020
Genres: Fantasy, Magic, Romance, Young Adult, Adventure
Rating: 4 Golden Eggs
Links: AMAZON CANADA | AMAZON USA | AMAZON UK | GOODREADS | AUTHOR WEBSITE

Blurb

The brave, burning with fire, harnessed the Dragon’s Rage….

As the Dragon Heir, seventeen-year-old Kaia inherited the power of flame to protect her homeland from a godlike necromancer’s undead army. But after centuries of peace, the necromancer has faded to myth, and the Dragon Heir is feared by the people. Persecuted and cast out, Kaia struggles to embrace and control her seemingly useless gift while confined to her family’s farm.

But when the necromancer’s undead terrorize the land once again, Kaia runs away to join the battle.

With the help of her childhood rival, the handsome Shadow Heir, and a snarky, cursed cat, Kaia must figure out how to control both her fire and her confidence in time to save Okarria. If she fails, she will sacrifice her family, her new friends, and the enchanting world she has only just begun to see.

And time is running out.

Review

This book follows the main characters, Kaia, a young woman who struggles to control her fire powers and Klaus, who seems to already have his fully under his control. The two of them are heirs, having inherited their powers to protect those around them, even if they in turn shun them out of fear and unfortunately Kaia’s inability to fully control her fires, doesn’t really help either.

The powers that the heirs have were meant to protect the people from the necromancer’s army, though he’d not been seen in a long time, long enough that he became nothing but a story. That is…until myth becomes reality and the undead army suddenly attacks during a festival. Instead of hiding, Kaia joins the fight. This is, after all, what she’s been training so long and hard for!

I really enjoyed this book, especially given to the fact that it reminds me of some of my favorite storyline styles (and tropes) where there’s an evil god and a band of adventurers rallying against it’s reign to bring peace back to the lands. It reminds me a bit of Fire Emblem and maybe I’m just biased towards any book plot that reminds me of the game.

Things are pretty violent in this book, especially towards the beginning with slit throats, death by burning alive, and the aftermath of some grotesques tortures.

A very quick and fast read, this book was zooming by and before I knew it, it was sadly over. The characters and world were good and I would love to see more of this world in the future books. There’s so much to love and the characters, especially, were among my favorite aspects of the story. There’s Kaia who goes through so much hell through this book and her growth in attitude and powers was one of the best parts. I thought the bickering and interactions between Kaia and Klaus was adorable and I loved how protective Klaus was of Kaia.

There’s also Kaia’s dog and partner, a ragehound, who is in charge of snapping her back to reality, whenever she loses control of her powers and succumbs to dragon rage. There’s a talking cat that I fell in love with, bear people with wolf ears and long snouts who shape-shift back into humans once a moon (like a reverse were-wolfbear?), a grumpy hermit who lives in the woods, and a cast of other very interesting people.

Don’t forget the nightmare fuel of “essentially the entire enemy’s army is comprised of the dead.”

All in all, a great book with some of my favorite tropes. Extra points for the cute animals and adored the writing and prose here as well.

4 Shiny Shiny Eggs!

About the Author

Hayley Reese Chow is the author of Odriel’s Heirs, the 2020 winner of the Florida Author Project. She also has short and flash fiction featured in Lite Lit One, The Drabble, Bewildering Stories, Teleport Magazine, and Rogue Blades Entertainment’s anthology, As You Wish.

Until recently though, she’s mostly done a lot of things that have nothing at all to do with writing. Her hat collection includes mother, wife, engineer, USAF veteran, reservist, four-time All American fencer, 100 mile ultramarathoner, triathlete, world traveler, book inhaler, and super nerd.

Hayley currently lives in Florida with two small wild boys, her long-suffering husband, and her miniature ragehound.

But at night, when the house is still, she writes.

To find Hayley’s other stories and see what she’s working on next, check out hayleyreesechow.com. You can also find her on Twitter or Instagram @HayleyReeseChow.

About BBNYA

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the 65 books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 10 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.