Audiobook Review – The Inheritance (Breach Wars, Book 1) by Ilona Andrews, Narrated by Hillary Huber, James Konicek (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Science Fiction
Length: 8 hours and 14 minutes
Publisher: NYLA
Release Date: January 28, 2026
ASIN: B0GGTLCCWR
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Breach Wars series
Source: Bought Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 4/5 stars

“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.”

Series Info/Source: This is the 1st book in the Breach Wars seres. I bought a copy of this on audiobook from Audible.com.

Thoughts: While I love the Ilona Andrews writing team, I have been struggling with the fact that they start so many projects they don’t finish. Normally, I would have snapped this up right away, but I waited for a bit because I am worried that this is another side project where they are going to start something but not follow through on it. I am still waiting for the resolution to The Innkeeper Chronicles, the continuation of The Iron Covenant, the continuation of Aurelia Ryder, and possibly some more Wilmington Years…

This book is a near future sci-fi where inter dimensional portals called breaches started opening on Earth and flooding our planet with monsters/aliens. Oddly, at this same time humans started gaining special talents that help them to fight and repel these monsters. The story follows Adaline whose Talent is assessing material in breaches for their worth; she can identify valuable minerals, and dangerous objects. Things go very wrong in the current breach she is assigned to and Ada ends up trapped in the breach with a German Shepherd named Bear as her only companion. She needs to find a way to escape the breach or at least survive until a team comes in to rescue her.

This was very typical Ilona Andrews. There is a lot of action, some adventure, and a lot of overly dramatic angsting about kids. The story goes back and forth between two POVs. The first is Adaline, who we hear the majority of the story from. The second is the leader of the group that Adaline was working for, who needs to go into this Breach to find out what happened. While Ada is trying to survive, he’s trying to get a team put together to enter the breach to assess the situation.

While I enjoyed this, there was a lot in here that was very similar to other books this team has written. There are lots of very well done action scenes and some intriguing monsters. The world-building is a bit gimmicky and contrived feeling, but feels complete. The characters have sharp senses of humor but can be overly dramatic and a bit too in their own heads at points. I liked Adaline, but she is a very typical Ilona Andrews type protagonist; she is smart, tough, has a weak spot for children and pets, and gets way too powerful too quickly.

In the end, I felt like this was fine. If you are a big Ilona Andrews fan, then you are familiar with the style and types of characters here. This is more of the same from them. That isn’t necessarily bad; a lot of people want more of the same. There just doesn’t seem to be a lot of anything new here. I liked the characters, but they are very similar to many other characters that this writing duo has come up with. The world-building was intricately done but seemed very contrived and implausible. The story went exactly as I expected it would go. Will I continue with this series? I think the bigger question is will Andrews actually finish one of their “side” projects…so we will see another book in this series?

I listened to this on audiobook and the audiobook was very well done. There are two narrators, and they both do an excellent job with their parts of the story. If you enjoy audiobooks I would recommend listening to this on audiobook.

My Summary (4/5): Overall this was fine, I enjoyed the action and adventure here. The characters were decent but similar to characters in other series by this writing team. The world-building was well done but felt immplausible and contrived. The story was very predictable. I am on the fence about whether or not I will finish this series. I really wish the Andrews team was working on finishing up some of their other spin-off series first.