The Warrior Heir

Jack Swift is a sixteen year old boy from the small town of Trinity, Ohio. Besides the dose of heart medicine he has taken from birth, he is completely ordinary. But, the one day he forgets to take his medicine, he feels stronger and more alive than ever before, almost as if he had been taking a suppressant all of his life. When Jack asks his eccentric Aunt Linda about these bizarre changes, she tells him of his true heritage. Jack is a Warrior, a member of one of the guilds of the Weirlind, an underground society of magical people.

There are five magical guilds: Wizards, Enchanters, Sorcerers, Soothsayers, and Warriors. The Wizard Guild has power over all the other, lesser guilds, or the Anawizard Weir. Two prominent Wizard houses, the White Rose and the Red Rose, have been fighting for control of the Wizard Council, the committee of wizards that makes decisions for the guilds, for centuries. The controlling house is decided by the Game. The Game is a tournament in which the two houses each sponsor a Warrior in a fight to the death. But, due to the frequency of the tournaments, there are few Warriors left alive.

The two houses are both looking for Warriors to fight in the tournament but, Jack is untrained and ill prepared to fight in battle. If either of the houses find out that he is a Warrior, they will either kidnap him and play him in the tournament where he will be killed, or they will murder him to keep him from fighting for the other House. It is up to Jack's friends and family to protect him from either of these fates.

This book was a wonderful mix of fantasy and reality. The idea that there are magical people living among us without our knowlege is very interesting. I greatly enjoyed this book and would also recommend the sequel, The Wizard Heir. I give this book four stomps.