Heir to the Shadows by Anne Bishop

Rating: 2 1/2 stars

Series: The Black Jewels #2

Very little happened to move the plot forward. Anne Bishop’s books aren’t action packed, and I don’t expect them to be. I do expect something interesting to happen. Most of this book rehashed the same problems from Daughter of the Blood. This covered Jaenelle’s teenage years, which were relatively uneventful. She recovered from the traumatic events in the prior book, hung out with her friends, and learned how to hone her craft. *yawn*

Hekatah hatched a few desperate attempts evil plans to destroy Jaenelle’s chances of coming into power as a queen. Hekatah was spoken about as if she was some extremely deceptive, manipulative person. Her actions indicated that she attempted to be those things but failed. Her plans were weak and desperate nor did they involve much intelligence or plotting. She doesn’t stand a chance. Frankly I wish she’d been killed off because I don’t want to waste my time reading about her since she is insignificant.

Lucivar’s role in the first book was small. His role in this was much bigger, but he went from being interesting and intelligent to a fool. He followed Jaenelle around like a lost puppy, and I desperately wish she would have told him to get lost. Also he is one or two thousand years old but he acted like a teenager.

The majority of this was told from Saetan’s perspective since Jaenelle was with him most of the time. He is the lamest character ever! Seriously grow some fucking balls Saetan! He is long lived and the High Lord of Hell, so stop acting like some driveling idiot! Saetan should be a bad ass, but instead he is the kindest, fairest ruler of them all. He is so intent on following the rules that he sacrificed his two sons to horrible fates all because of protocol.

Instead of being a BAMF all Saetan did was think about Jaenelle to the degree that he is blind to anything else going on in his realm including threats to Jaenelle. He is a horrible leader. He would be a loyal friend but is way too weak to be an effective leader. He’s also a shitty father to Jaenelle. He took great care of her but didn’t give her any direction. When she wanted something to be a certain way, she got her way.

Daemon was barely in this, and he is the most interesting character in the series by far. His absence deeply impacted the book and not in a good way. There was a point to it, but so many other inconsequential things didn’t need to be focused on in his abscence. He sacrificed almost everything for Jaenelle in Daughter of the Blood, but did anybody give a shit about what he sacrificed for her? Nooooooo. He’s expendable, but apparently Jaenelle is not. She was the only one that cared about him at all, but she failed to show the outrage I wanted to see from her.

I’m still going to read the next one, but my expectations aren’t as high as they were when I started this book.