Published: August 10, 2025
Publisher: NYLA
Series: Breach Wars #1
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 280 (Kindle)
Synopsis:
We are at war. The interdimensional invasion brought us unimaginable suffering, but it also awoke talents slumbering deep within us, a means to repel and destroy our enemy. Every day new gates open, leading to breaches filled with monsters and valuable resources. If you are a Talent, your country needs you. The world needs you. Be the hero you were born to be.
Adaline is a Talent. Ten years ago, she had a happy marriage and a job she loved. The invasion shattered both. Now she works for the government, searching the breaches for magic metals and medicine to help Earth repel an interdimensional enemy. Two kids, one cat, bills, benefits, mortgage and school tuition…Risking her life became routine.
She had gone into the dimensional gates hundreds of times. She was always well protected. This time everything goes wrong. Now Ada is trapped in the labyrinth of alien caves unlike any other. Her only companion is a scared German Shepherd named Bear. Together they must uncover the breach’s secrets and escape, because Ada promised her children that she will come home.
The future of humanity depends on it.
After This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me went straight into my Top Reads of 2026 list, I decided I needed to check out more books by Ilona Andrews and what better place to start than another new-ish book with no sequel yet? I apparently like to keep the fount of my TBR overflowing because I keep starting new series and tormenting myself waiting for sequels. Thought The Inheritance is very different from This Kingdom, and I felt it could have been categorized as either fantasy or science fiction, it was nonetheless captivating!
This book is set in a world where strange portals began appearing across Earth ten years ago and invaders from another world started to breach our world. As a result some humans began manifesting powers, called Talents. A decade later and there’s an entire industry surrounding this new aspect of ‘normal’ life because the breaches are filled with valuable resources. The Inheritance follows Adaline, a Talent working for the government who can locate and identify valuable resources (ores, plants, etc.) inside the breaches for the guilds that contract her services. On one such mission Ada and a group of Cold Chaos guild members are attacked by sword wielding beings and Ada is left behind as several guild members collaps the tunnel to escape. Ada tries to save the humanoid that was being pursued by the sword wielders and as the person dies, they transfer some sort of orb into her body. Ada, alongside the german shepherd trapped with her, set off into the breach in order to find a secondary route to the breach opening before Cold Chaos comes to close it up. Along the way Ada begins to discover what the strange orb does and it’s apparent that if she escapes she must keep it a secret.
This book kept me listening with rapt attention because I could never quite predict what Ada would encounter next. The breaches are strange and otherworldly (literally), so the journey was fraught. I liked that in counterpoint to Ada’s action packed chapters, we are also given the POV of the Cold Chaos guild leader and it follows him as he works to put together a team to enter the breach and search for survivors. While not as fleshed out as This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, The Inheritance was nevertheless entertaining and left me excited for the sequel. I look forward to exploring more Ilona Andrews books and can’t wait to see what sort of world will unfold in this series!
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