Serena’s Review: “The Jasad Crown”

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Book: “The Jasad Crown” by Sara Hashem

Publishing Info: Orbit, July 2025

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org |Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: Held deep in a mountain refuge, Sylvia has been captured by the Urabi, who believe she can return their homeland to its former power. But after years of denying her legacy and a forbidden alliance with Jasad’s greatest enemy, Sylvia must win the group’s trust while struggling to keep control of both her magic and her mind.

In the rival kingdom, Arin is caught between his father’s desire to put down the brewing rebellion and the sacred edicts he’s sworn to uphold. Arin must find Sylvia before his father’s army, but his search will call into question the very core of Arin’s beliefs about his family and the destruction of Jasad.

War is inevitable and Sylvia cannot abandon her people again. The Urabi plan to raise the Jasadi fortress, and it will either kill Sylvia or destroy the humanity she’s fought so hard to protect. For the first time in her life Sylvia doesn’t just want to survive. She wants to win.
The fugitive queen is ready to come home.

Previously Reviewed: “The Jasad Heir”

Review: I’ve been waiting for so long for this sequel that I had begun to question whether the first book was really as enjoyable as it was. (This is an established coping technique for readers, when we have long waits between books, to prevent the onset of madness due to anticipation!) But the minute I turned the first page on this one, I remembered just how satisfying that first book was. And now, with the duology complete, I can say that the entire experience was all-around excellent!

There’s a lot of great things to talk about with this one, but given the current proliferation of the “enemies to lovers” trope in romantasy, I think this is an area where this book really shines. So much so that I’d almost say this should be required reading for how to correctly write this sort of romantic storyline. There are many ways in which the love story is successful, both in the first book and carried over to this one. The first book is appropriately a slow-burn, with both characters slowly, naturally progressing through their negative associations with the other. As is typical with this sort of plot, that book ends with a bombshell, revealing all of the secrets and lies between them.

The important part is now how this romance is handled in this book. The author does so many things right! For one thing, it’s not as if both characters suddenly, inexplicably, lose all of the friendship, trust, and even love that had built up between them. Yes, obstacles have been introduced, but both are mature characters who, to some extent or another, trust their own original judgement and, frankly, have more important things to worry about than too much ridiculous angst. Sure, these reveals have an impact, but there’s no overly YA “but she betraaaayyyeeed meeee” nonsense where it doesn’t make sense.

Further, and this goes back to work done in the first book, the author created two characters who are fully realized beings on their own, who have built-in personality traits, strengths, and weaknesses, that would independently drive their choices and actions through an enemies-to-lovers romance. For example, Arin has been well-established as a character who is highly strategic and highly invested in understanding everything that goes on around him. Thus, by the time the truth about Sylvia is revealed, his journey towards re-thinking his understanding of his own nation and the history of this world at large is based on his own intrinsic character traits, not just “but I luuuuv her!!” Too often, the entire journey from “enemy” to “lovers” requires one character to simply change who they are or change teams based on almost nothing but their love for the other character. Here, Arin’s journey has practically nothing to do with his feelings for Sylvia, and this makes it all the more realistic and interesting to read! It’s this point, giving characters their own inner motivations for change outside of the love story, that I think is so often missing in these sorts of romances.

Further, Sylvia doesn’t magically transform into the perfect leader of this rebellion. Indeed, she’s pretty terrible at it all the way through the entire book! What’s more, however, the book does an excellent job of portraying the foibles of the rebellion itself! All too often, again, stories like this have a frustrating tendency of dumbing down their political conflicts to the point that you can pretty much guarantee that whatever rebellion group you find will be coded as purely good and righteous at every turn. Here, this group is made up of humans, with their own grievances, misunderstandings, and tendencies towards self-centered motivations. Sylvia’s journey is one of balancing imperfections, both her own as well as the group of displaced Jasadis that she’s trying to lead.

Lastly, as far as the romance goes, I appreciated that the author didn’t string us a long with the love story! Even given their circumstances, Hashem found creative ways to throw Arin and Sylvia back in each others orbits at regular intervals, beginning fairly early in the book. I always find it incredibly annoying and contrived when authors feel the need to keep their characters apart to drive up “tension,” especially in books that are the last in a series’ run, as this is our last time getting to spend time with these characters. And for pages and pages to be wasted on unearned pining is the peak of annoyance for me.

I also enjoyed the introduction of a few chapters from various side characters’ perspectives. There weren’t tons of these, but through them, we got a better insight into various interested parties, all with their own priorities and motivations. These perspectives helped to further flesh out the world and raise the stakes for the ultimate conflict, one that affected more than just Jasad itself but magic as a whole!

I also really enjoyed the expansion of this world’s magic system and history. The book definitely took some twists and turns that I didn’t see coming, and the answers to many lingering questions were incredibly satisfying. I think the book also wrapped up in an excellent manner. It’s bittersweet, of course, but it also technically checks off the HEA requirements, so never fear!

This book is peak romantasy, as far as I’m concerned. It’s also criminally under-appreciated in a packed genre where, too often, lesser titles rise to the top based on nothing more than #vibes. This is a fantastically written, fully realized and developed, romantasy title that should be used as the gold standard for properly pacing an “enemies to lovers” romance. This is a great read for romantasy and fantasy romance readers alike and I can’t recommend the duology enough!

Rating 10: Great world-building, excellent prose, spot-on dialogue, and a love story that hits all the right notes, this book has it all!

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Jasad Crown” is on these Goodreads lists: Arabian, Egyptian, and Indian Fantasy 2 and 2025 Adult Fantasy/Sci-fi/Speculative Releases by BIPOC Authors.