🎧 The Wraith King by Juliette Cross @Juliette__Cross @troyduran @MegSylvan #PodiumAudio #LoveAudiobooks #KindleUnlimited @RobinBridgeFour‏

Review copy was received from Purchased. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

A brutal, bloody war against the ruthless Wraith King has cost the light fae more than innocent lives.

Una Hartstone, Princess of Issos, learns the price the Wraith King demands to end the war once and for all—Her. In exchange for the safety of her people, she agrees to give her life—and her body—to her greatest enemy.

Gollaya Verbane is determined to fulfill his destiny and his god's prophecy. When his seer points to the Princess of Issos as the key to the rise of the dark fae, he demands her submission. But when she finally yields, he realizes Una is much more to him than a priceless weapon.

A mystery that has haunted Una for years awakens when she is abducted and dragged back to Näkt Mir. The palace hides many dark secrets… and at least one traitor. A traitor determined to take King Goll's throne—and all he possesses. What he doesn't know is that Una's magick is more powerful than he can imagine and that Goll will burn the whole world to save her.

The Wraith King, the first book of the Rise of Northgall, is a romantasy that is more heavily invested in the romance than the fantasy.  I think this is important to mention as I will let romances get away with some things that I would never let fantasy get away with.  The Wraith King is sort of an enemies to lovers story.  However it is more the Fae tribes are enemies more than Una or Gollaya, the Wraith King.

First, let’s talked about what I liked.

That cover is amazing, probably my favorite cover of the year so far.  The story in the prologue setting up the conflict between the different Fae was interesting and I thought set the lore and stage of the story well.  The Dragon was awesome!  I even like Una and Gollaya for the most part.  Una just wants to save her people and risked everything to try and do that.   Gollaya was treated horribly by his father, because of a prophecy that he would overthrow his father’s rule.  He is a little broken but is trying to do right by not only his people but all the different fae.

The romance is interesting and it takes up most of the story.  Gollaya’s seer foretold that one of the Moon Fae would be his fated mate.  He believes it to be Una and sets out to make sure she agrees to be his.  Una would do anything to save her people and agrees to stop the war and end the bloodshed.   Strangers that wed and then learn about each other is one of my favorite tropes, so I did enjoy most of that storyline of the book.

Then things that didn’t work as well for me.

Most of the tension between Una and Gollaya is they just don’t talk, or he avoids her for long periods of time.  There are just some big misunderstandings and that is the only thing really holding them apart.  I think there was a lot to play with here and would have liked it explored a little more.  The different Fae and the fantasy are glossed over a bit.  You can tell there is a rich world here to play with and different lore of the fae to dive into.  I wished the story spent a little more time on that.  The quest, seemed almost too easy,  something in a romance I will accept but in a fantasy I wouldn’t.

Overall, this has a lot going for it and I really liked the set up for the next story in the series focused more on the Shadow Fae.  But I needed to think of it being more of a romance than get caught up in the fantasy I hoped it would be.

Narration:

Performance: ★★★★★
Character Separation: ★★★★
Diction: ★★★★★
Pacing/Flow: ★★★★
Sound Effects: None

Troy Duran’s voice is perfect for the dark and sexy Fae king.  I loved his intonations and the overall performance of the Wraith King.  He is a skilled narrator and really shone in this performance.  Meg Sylvan was no slouch either and I found her performance well done with great pacing and character separation.  She definitely brought the character to life in her narration as well.

Listen to a clip: HERE

Rating Breakdown
Plot
Writing
Characters
Dialogue
Narration (Audio)
Overall:

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Robin

Reviewer at Books of My Heart

Reading is my #1 addiction…I’d go to a support group for it but who are we kidding -  I have no intentions of quitting anytime soon. By day, I’m a quality engineer and can be found sciencing and listening to books. On nights and weekends, I’m a wannabe Spartan and am often training and listening to books. I straight up LOVE almost everything by Brandon Sanderson and Ilona Andrews; they are my flagship authors and I might be slightly impartial where they are concerned. My other guilty pleasures are unusual fairytale retellings and uber alpha males.


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