Heavenbreaker by Sara Wolf

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In Synali von Hauteclare's world, blood is all that matters.

In a massive space station that houses the last of humanity, the king rules. Nobles dance. Commoners starve. And when they aren't starving, they watch the riding tournaments between the giant robots called “steeds”—once used in the war against the enemy, now repurposed for honorable lance-to-lance high-speed combat with a gravity generator. Only nobles may have the honor of riding. Only nobles may have the glory. Only nobles have the blood.

In Synali von Hauteclare's world, she's a bastard; her mother a commoner, her father a duke. And she's just killed him.

But he killed first.

Seven people in House Hauteclare helped her father hire an assassin to kill her and her mother. Synali survived. Her mother did not. And now Synali will do anything to make them pay, even ally with a noble, her sworn enemy. Now she’s made a deal: for every win she scores in the upcoming Supernova Cup, this enigmatic nobleman will kill one of the seven. She's never ridden, and the steed her new ally gives her—Heavenbreaker—sings strange lullabies in its hangar. And, increasingly, in her mind.

With her half sibling, Mirele von Hauteclare on her trail, and hotshot pilot Rax who’s trying to get in her bed, Synali has her hands full.

But blood is all that matters. And she will ensure they see much of it.

Trigger & Content Warnings: grief, murder, classism, domestic violence, poisoning, attempted suicide, suicide ideation, religious trauma, loss of autonomy, child abuse, death of a parent

Heavenbreaker was amazing. I knew I was going to enjoy this, because Sara Wolf is one of my favorite Entangled authors, but what I didn’t know was this was going to be my favorite book of hers to date and 2024.

(Yeah, I know I said that for Five Broken Blades. That sentence did not age well, though.)

This is the first book in a currently untitled series, and it immediately starts off with our protagonist Synali murdering her father (Duke Hauteclare) to avenge the attempted assassination on her mother and her months ago. She knows there’s no way out of murdering a noble, so she decides if she’s going to go down anyway, she’s going to go down disgracing House Hauteclare.

Unfortunately for Synali, she doesn’t die from the attempt like she thought/planned she would; instead, she’s offered to ride Heavenbreaker, one of the few steeds originally from the War 400 years ago, and to enter the Supernova Cup jousting against riders from all the other noble families. For each round she wins, one family member will die. And if she wins, House Hauteclare will be dissolved permanently as she originally intended and she’ll get her wish to join her mother in death.

I loved Synali. She’s full of despair and rage, and everything she does has her one goal of dissolving House Hauteclare in mind. She literally does not give a single care about what the nobles think of her because all she wants is to rest and you see this throughout the entire book. And frankly, it was heartbreaking and emotional to read about — Heavenbreaker gets pretty heavy with suicide ideation, and while I expected this walking in and reading Wolf’s other books, so I knew what I was getting into, it was still quite a bit for me personally.

There’s a lot of other themes as well, and you can see this through the different POVs Wolf writes the story in. Most of the chapters are from Synali’s view, but we get a few from Mirele, Rax, an assassin, and a couple other minor characters. While all of those chapters are quick, Wolf makes the most of those pages — I loved getting to explore the different court politics and dynamics between the noble houses, the classism, the ongoing plot that’s beyond Synali that’s brewing, the different layers for the characters (even the minor ones!) through some of their backstory, the corruption of the noble families in power, etc.

There’s also a component about AI, which we got snippets of throughout Heavenbreaker and I’m curious to see more in the sequel and see where Wolf goes with it, especially since it’s relevant to current events with the development of AI in our everyday lives. But there is a lot going on and it’s quite easy to get lost in the thick of it all, since the tournament is going on, too — sometimes I found myself going back and rereading so I can process it again because it went over my head completely. (But that’s a problem for me and my one remaining brain cell.)

I will also say if you’re expecting a lot of romance, you’re going to find yourself thoroughly disappointed because it’s pretty negligible and has the makings of a slow-burn.

Overall, Heavenbreaker was a joy to read — hands down my favorite Sara Wolf book to date and book of the year. It was thrilling and complex, filled with female rage, and I’m super excited for Hellrunner to come out.

Sophia

Blogger at Bookwyrming Thoughts · Website · Read More Posts

Sophia started blogging in February 2012 for the hell of it and is surprisingly still around. She has a GIF for nearly everything, probably listens to too much K-Pop and is generally in an existential crisis of sorts (she's trying her best). More of her bookish reviews and K-Pop Roundups can be found at The Arts STL.

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