To every reader and bookseller who picked up this book, ordered it to their library, added it to their TBR—your kind words and support have been an unending source of joy for me throughout this journey. I’m forever thankful to you for taking a chance on a debut author.
Finally, to my elementary school librarian, even though you may never see this. You saw me reading alone every day at recess and took me under your wing. You let me check out five books at a time instead of the school-sanctioned two, and you asked about every single one I read. You put a chair just for me behind the counter, so I could scan books with you if the world became too overwhelming. Because of you, the library was more than just a place to read—it was my haven. I will never be able to thank you enough for reminding me the real world can sometimes be as magical as fictional ones.
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extras
meet the author
Sara Hashem
SARA HASHEM is an American Egyptian writer from Southern California, where she spent many sunny days holed up indoors with a book. Sara’s love for fantasy and magical realms emerged during the two years her family lived in Egypt. When she isn’t busy naming stray cats in her neighborhood after her favorite authors, Sara can be found buried under coffee-ringed notebooks.
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interview
What was the first book that made you fall in love with the fantasy genre?
I’d say the major players for binding my heart to fantasy were the Magic Treehouse and Charlie Bone series. The itch to travel for me started young, and those books took me places a plane never could. I will never get over how fortunate I am to share a world of my own in hopes it whisks a reader away.
Where did the initial idea for The Jasad Heir come from and how did the story begin to take shape?
A story typically takes shape for me around a central question. For The Jasad Heir, I wanted to know: What do you owe to a place and a people you’ve barely known, but without whom you wouldn’t exist? I’m not the biggest fan of revenge story lines, so I was stymied with her character for a while. I kept thinking, what should she do? How should she fight for her kingdom and her people?
And then eventually, why should she want to?
I wanted Sylvia to feel familiar to eldest daughters of immigrant families in particular, who feel the weight of duty and obligation far earlier than most. But we usually carry it out of love, even when it wears us down. Sylvia was missing love. Responsibilities were stacked so high on her shoulders that she broke, severing herself from any kind of tie or duty so thoroughly that she stopped associating herself with Jasad. In the first half of the book, she refers to them as “they” or “the Jasadis.” There’s the other her, Essiya, who represents an idealized version of herself.
Once I had Sylvia’s arc （sort of） nailed down, the rest came easier. I love scheming and court machinations, magical mayhem, book versions of the Rocky training montage, and a villain who doesn’t realize he’s a villain.
What was the most challenging moment of writing The Jasad Heir?
The most challenging moment was after Soraya stabs Sylvia. Sylvia is vowing to take down Soraya, but her motivations when she makes the declaration are incredibly tricky to balance. She’s torn between her burgeoning sense of community and duty toward Jasad, her own lone-wolf brand of self-preservation, and a very personal pain at discovering a relationship she’d cherished was a lie. Especially since she realized trauma has rendered her own mind and memories unreliable. The guilt, the defensiveness, the stubborn hurt and anger are emotions Sylvia grapples with throughout the novel.
The Jasad Heir is partially inspired by protests and uprisings of the Arab Spring. What was your approach to incorporating those ideas into your work? Did you do any specific research to build the world?
I completely avoided researching Arab Spring. I was living in Egypt during the uprisings, but I was barely a teenager. My sharpest memories are of people. The fear, the wonder, the hope. My aunt complaining about the curfew and insane increase in the cost of fruit. Distracting my siblings while tanks rolled down the street （followed by my sister begging us to take a photo of her inside the wheel of a tank, because she was ten and thought they were cool）。 I remember standing outside with my father in bitterly cold weather and asking how anyone could bear to sleep in a tent in Tahrir Square in this temperature. I was amazed any passion or rage could survive in such conditions. Sylvia is a child when Jasad falls. She sees it happen only from a distance. She grows up feeling like she owes a debt to a place she barely remembers, that her connection to Jasad has only ever brought her trouble. To truly risk herself for something, to essentially sleep in a freezing tent with danger surrounding her on all sides, Sylvia had to feel like she belonged in that fight.