Review copy was received from Publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Wildblood by AJ Vrana Narrator: Brandon Francis, Zura Johnson
Published by Tantor Audio on January 13, 2026
Genres: Mystery, Fantasy Romance
Length: 15 hours, 47 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Publisher
Goodreads
Amazon, Audible, Libro.fm
Kai Donovan has always had sharp teeth. Earning his keep as an underground fighter in South Boston, he revels in well-earned notoriety. Wild. Irreverent. Vicious. His he's the monster from a fable.
But when Kai loses a match against a mysterious opponent whose ferocity rivals his own, he finds himself beholden to the underworld. What he owes isn't money, but the recovery of an elusive prize coveted by the city's most dangerous criminals.
His partner Miya—burdened with the ability to traverse dreams—spends her days investigating supernatural phenomena. When she receives a shadowy proposal to find a missing teenager, she's confronted with the possibility that another like her exists.
As Kai and Miya chase ghosts, the threads of their pursuits weave into a menacing tapestry. Kai's dark past returns to haunt him, threatening the bonds he believed to be ironclad. Unhealed wounds fester as he's faced with a ruinous unravel his blood-soaked history or lose himself and the life he's scavenged together.
Bare your teeth. The nightmares are at your door.
Wildblood, is a tale of an established couple’s journey to save a kidnapped girl and their relationship. He is a wild thing who values freedom over everything else in his life. She is the woman who is a stabilizing force in his life and wants to be there to help her partner with the demons of his past. In order for them to move on and grow, Miya and Kia need to find a balance and trust each other with some of their deepest secrets.
I have not read The Chaos Cycle duology, origin of Kia and Miya’s story. And while you can read and enjoy Wildblood without it, I think my investment in the characters and found family would have been deeper if I had read that companion series first. That said, Wildblood is a stand alone story with a solid plot and storyline that was still a good read for me. I liked Kia and his bad boy vibe. Miya is the only person in his life that he really cares anything about and he has no qualms of doing whatever it takes to give her what she needs. Miya is better at socialization and friends, she has a heart that wants to help and save those she can. With her special dream walking abilities, she has been able to cross the barriers between the physical and spirit worlds to banish spirits, or help harmonize them to their surroundings. It really led to some very cool visualizations in the story steeped in Slavic and Irish lore.
Kia is the reincarnation of a Wolf god of chaos, this makes him able to shift into a wolf but doesn’t hold most of the other Were type tropes. Because of this, he is stronger, faster and heals better. But orphaned young, he doesn’t have a lot of his history or the lore of his people. He will have to face some of his demons of the past to figure out how to move on in the present or face pushing his partner away. Who better to help with that than a therapist who has in the past specialized in treating the spouses of Mobsters. Kia’s plot line has also put his mission at odds with Miya’s newest job. It appears they are both looking for the same girl for very different reasons. They will have to work together to find a solution if they are going to be able to save a girl who materialized from the Spirit realm three years ago.
Overall I liked the set up and characters in the story. I’m a pretty big fan of Slavic lore lately and liked seeing some of the tales and stories from that brought into this story. Kia and Miya are ultimately cute together and I did like the found family and the penchant for picking up new members to it. I liked Kia and Miya as characters and the glimpses we saw of their origin story. I plan on going back and reading The Chaos Cycle at some point to see how it is they found and fought to keep each other.
“I’m not death,” said Kai. “I’m the fucking calamity that wields it.”
Narration:
Performance: ★★★★
Character Separation: ★★★★
Diction: ★★★★
Pacing/Flow: ★★★★★
Sound Effects: None
Both Brandon Francis and Zura Johnson have significant productions under their belt. I have listened to books Zura Johnson has been in a cast of full production narrators but Brandon Francis is a new to me narrator. Both had great voices for this story. Brandon captured the timber and wildness of Kia and his inner demons while Zura was able to capture not only Miya’s tenderness and compassion but also strength. The voices played well off of each other in the different PoVs and I enjoyed the overall performance and delivery of both narrators.
Listen to a clip: HERE
| Rating Breakdown | |
|---|---|
| Plot |
 |
| Writing |
|
| Characters |
|
| Dialogue |
|
| Narration (Audio) |
|
| Overall: | |
Friend me at Goodreads.
- The Romance Revival by Christina Lauren @christinalauren.bsky.social #GalleryBooks @RobinBridgeFour - July 6, 2026
- 🎧 Songs of the Dead by Brandon Sanderson, Peter Orullian @brandonsanderson.com #PeterOrullian #LukeDaniels #LOVEAudiobooks @RobinBridgeFour @BrandSanderson - June 29, 2026
- 🎧 The Girl in the Lake by Lauren Oliver #LaurenOliver #ShannonMcManus #BrillianceAudio #KindleUnlimited🎧 @RobinBridgeFouri #LoveAudiobooks #JIAM - June 22, 2026
Intense sounding. And that cover is intense too!
I am guilty of picking this one up because of the cover 😛