Aspen

Beautiful

Revisado: 05-20-23

The world Alexandra Rowland had come up with is wonderfully beautiful - I was a bit skeptical at first since the description of the book is a little lackluster (and in hindsight, not entirely accurate). Don't let it discourage your interest - this book had me totally enraptured.

The slow build between Kadou and Evemer is wonderful, but if you aren't a fan of slow burn, you'll find it extremely frustrating. Personally I prefer a longer, drawn out approach to romance and attraction so I found it very much my speed.

What wasn't really my speed was the ending. While everything was wrapped up neatly, it all seemed to happen a little too fast at the end. It definitely came off as a HFN ending, with an off screen impending threat - after basically 18.5hrs of story, I wished there was more closure for Kadou and Evemer's future, especially since I think (as of writing this review) that this is a stand-alone book.

I don't think I've seen other reviews mention it, but it's SO refreshing to see a world with a trinary gender system that is presented without fanfare. I was confused at first since Rowland uses unique pronouns but once I caught on I was so delighted! There was one spot where I had some doubt about something that was mentioned-- without giving anything away, having a binder on or anything that compresses the chest while also potentially having broken ribs would be a very, very bad thing. It wouldn't "hold everything in place" so to speak.

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Wonderfully complicated and impossible to put down

Revisado: 05-20-23

SO-- I don't normally care for post-apocalyptic "the world is overrun by zombies" sort of settings but Hailey Turner has managed to make it compelling for me in ways most other stories simply aren't. The cordyceps-like nature of the spores that raise the dead is super interesting.

It's not clear from the description of the book, but Maricol is a planet that was traveled to via spaceship a long, long time ago - it's barely habitable by humans and every day is a constant struggle. Technology has been lost, and current day tech is a mixture of magic and steampunk invention. It's a wonderfully delightful mix of genres (sci-fi, fantasy, post-apocalyptic) that I don't think I've seen before.

Hailey Turner manages to juggle a massive cast of characters expertly. It can be a little confusing at first when time jumps forward (or doesn't) when the focus changes from one mini-chapter (character POV) to the next, but as long as you're able to just roll with it you'll be fine. The end of the book has a glossary of terms that helps settle some information that wasn't easy to place in the actual story itself.

Gary Furlong's narration is wonderful, and I'm definitely keen on hearing more of his narrations in the future! His range for voices is excellent. I had no trouble telling who was speaking when at any point of the book.

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Wonderfully complicated and impossible to put down

Revisado: 05-20-23

SO-- I don't normally care for post-apocalyptic "the world is overrun by zombies" sort of settings but Hailey Turner has managed to make it compelling for me in ways most other stories simply aren't. The cordyceps-like nature of the spores that raise the dead is super interesting.

It's not clear from the description of the book, but Maricol is a planet that was traveled to via spaceship a long, long time ago - it's barely habitable by humans and every day is a constant struggle. Technology has been lost, and current day tech is a mixture of magic and steampunk invention. It's a wonderfully delightful mix of genres (sci-fi, fantasy, post-apocalyptic) that I don't think I've seen before.

Hailey Turner manages to juggle a massive cast of characters expertly. It can be a little confusing at first when time jumps forward (or doesn't) when the focus changes from one mini-chapter (character POV) to the next, but as long as you're able to just roll with it you'll be fine. The end of the book has a glossary of terms that helps settle some information that wasn't easy to place in the actual story itself.

Gary Furlong's narration is wonderful, and I'm definitely keen on hearing more of his narrations in the future! His range for voices is excellent. I had no trouble telling who was speaking when at any point of the book.

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I could not stop listening-

Revisado: 05-20-23

I listen to books while I work, and normally I don't mind pausing and waiting until the next shift to continue... that's not so much the case with this one.

I sort of binged this book and the first one in the series (The Prince's Poisoned Vow) and I could continue drowning in this story for weeks, I swear. I don't know how Hailey Turner manages to balance so many important characters, but the result is a wonderfully complicated story that on more than one occasion had me grinning. laughing, and mentally screaming. It's not all that often that a book literally forces my facial expressions to change while I'm working - I try to keep it neutral since I'm out in public when on the job.

On more than one occasion I was left with the thought "she can't keep getting away with it!!!" but she did! She being Eimarille, and of course she can! And did!

I will be waiting patiently (as I can be) for more, because of course, this one ends on one hell of a cliffhanger. ; )

Gary Furlong's performance continues to be wonderful in this book as well.

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I could not stop listening-

Revisado: 05-20-23

I listen to books while I work, and normally I don't mind pausing and waiting until the next shift to continue... that's not so much the case with this one.

I sort of binged this book and the first one in the series (The Prince's Poisoned Vow) and I could continue drowning in this story for weeks, I swear. I don't know how Hailey Turner manages to balance so many important characters, but the result is a wonderfully complicated story that on more than one occasion had me grinning. laughing, and mentally screaming. It's not all that often that a book literally forces my facial expressions to change while I'm working - I try to keep it neutral since I'm out in public when on the job.

On more than one occasion I was left with the thought "she can't keep getting away with it!!!" but she did! She being Eimarille, and of course she can! And did!

I will be waiting patiently (as I can be) for more, because of course, this one ends on one hell of a cliffhanger. ; )

Gary Furlong's performance continues to be wonderful in this book as well.

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a delightful story ! can't wait for more.

Revisado: 05-07-23

I don't usually write reviews so this will probably be a little clunky, and while I have listened to a lot of other books with romance involved they're usually more side plots rather than main plots. (Unless its the reverse.... but honestly I think Hunger Pangs breaks that binary a bit.)

First things first though, Catherine Bilson does such a wonderful job narrating! If I see her as the narrator on another book in the future it'll definitely make me more interested in getting that book.

Plot(s):
As I mentioned above it's clear that Hunger Pangs is just the first step in the series to come. I would consider this book to be laying the foundation of what's to come, but while still keeping things a bit of a mystery. I'm a little more used to series where things are more concretely wrapped up, or if it's continuing on, explicitly laid out what the "Big Bad" is and while Hunger Pangs maybe does that, it also sort of leaves things up in the air-- which is NOT a bad thing, I actually like the bit of mystery and I don't think that it would be necessary for this particular book.

The description of the book is pretty accurate: this is mostly about Nathan and Vlad coming together and what that entails in a world (or perhaps just country) where non-human citizens are second class, even when they hold titles. Admittedly, most books I've listened to/read haven't actually had much in the way of vampires or werewolves (not for lack of interest) so it was just so delightful for the book to go into cultural differences between the two in this particular setting, as well as biological differences.

Nathan and Vlad are both very relatable characters - each one struggling with their own issues that struck close to home, at least for me. But not in a way that was painful- a lot of the book is them dealing with their issues in ways that provide relief. Things are handled so nicely.

I especially enjoyed how nonchalant the book was about neutral pronouns. While transness never explicitly came up, it's clear from the way pronouns are used that it's probably not some Big Issue for residents of Eyrie, at least. It's such a breath of fresh air, as a trans person myself, to see stuff like this.

Spiciness:
Now I've listened to quite a few spicy books and so maybe that's colored my experience here, but in terms of actual spice, I'd consider Hunger Pangs to be pretty mild. This edition definitely contains spice, but to me I'd put it as a step above "fade to black" rather than full on... you know. Not something you'd want someone to overhear either way, though.

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Plenty of potential, but published too early...

Revisado: 07-03-22

So let me state first off that I did enjoy this book, at least enough to finish it. It strikes me as a story that probably could have sit in the oven a little longer to really finish coming together before being published... which is to say, there's immense potential here for what it could have been, versus what it actually is. I'll also preface this with I may just be older than the target audience for this book and my thoughts should probably be taken with a grain of salt. I'm also like, not new to social justice and have been living out in the open as a transmasc person for 10+ years at this point which may also inform a lot of my thinking here. /Ultimately/, it's a good story with an interesting premise! It's just... not there yet.

I'll divide this into a couple things-- first off, the narration.
Dani did a great job portraying Wyatt, and the other characters, but since this is written in first-person perspective I put more weight on Wyatt than the others. I will say that I think this is a book better /read/ rather than /listened to/, because there were several instances in which I could not tell if what was being said was being verbalized by Wyatt, or just something he was thinking. I've listened to other first-person books before and haven't had that problem - without seeing the text, I'm unsure if this is a problem with the narrator or with how the text is structured. Either way - Dani's performance was great and I'll have to keep an eye out for them in the future!

Okay- onto the text itself. First I want to touch on something I think others would find important:

Transness-
As expected from a trans author, it's written in a way that conveys lived experience. Wyatt is never deadnamed in a way the reader will hear (he is deadnamed, but we never learn what his deadname is), and when he is misgendered it's fairly brief and the offender is quickly chastised for doing so. Wyatt's transness is not a major Problem in the story, and even antagonists correctly name and gender him (outside of 2-3 instances). It's other aspects of Wyatt's identity that are more problematic for him. I admittedly picked this book up because I haven't actually come across very many stories with trans masc leads, let alone /gay/ trans masc leads, and I had really been hoping it wouldn't be treated as a Big Deal - that hope came true. : ) That said, Wyatt states /several/ times that he does not want to be Emyr's "baby factory" and that doesn't get addressed until near the end of the book. At least by Emyr. No one else addresses it. Not even Briar, his best friend, has anything to say about that particular thing. For a book with a transmasc lead, I personally feel like that's a Pretty Big Deal to not explicitly address when so many other things are addressed nearly to the point of bringing the reader/listener out of the story.

Meme lingo- or rather, AAVE and some meme lingo.
I saw this mentioned in another review, so I expected it, but it is a little over the top and on more than one occasion left me feeling pulled out of the story. A lot of the phrases will absolutely date this, which is fine, but it tends to be a little bit /much/ in the grand scheme of things and sort of pulls you out of the moment. I'm not Black so I can't really comment on the use of AAVE but it did sort of strike me as language being used in a way that it probably wasn't intended to be used.

Self-Indulgent Power Fantasy-
Let me state first off that I totally support being as self-indulgent as you want in your writing. Fiction is about making real what you want to see, and this book does that. It's very heavy-handed about it. If that sort of thing isn't your cup of tea, you may want to consider something else. I agree with what the author is trying to say here - burn the systems of oppression to the ground, nothing about them can be "fixed" because they aren't actually broken. The systems are working as designed.

Plot and Timeline-
So. This is where I think the book could have sat and baked a bit longer to reach completion. Or perhaps gone through another few rounds of editing with someone that could really bring out what the author was trying to go for here. It doesn't feel complete. I still don't actually know what time frame this book takes place in. A few weeks? A few months? Every so often Wyatt will mention that a couple days have passed, but the days we actually spend in the narration are so jam packed with Things Happening that it's very hard to keep track of how long some things take versus other things. The plot speeds up and slows down in a way that's a bit jarring and difficult to keep track of.

Large chunks of drama or plot twists seem a little unnecessary when taking into consideration where the book ends, and who our antagonists are. For a large portion of the book, I found Emyr to be a person I wanted to like but could not comfortably do so because a major Issue (see above) with Wyatt was not addressed until the last like, 1/4th of the book. It's not as if this particular issue is not brought up several times before it finally gets addressed between Wyatt and Emyr, either. And even when it is addressed, it isn't /really/ addressed so much as its set aside as a "we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

Cis Men and The Straights-
So. I get it. I do. Straight and Cisgender people hold quite a bit of social power over the rest of us queers. But I have a bit of a bone to pick with the way this story only ever goes after Cisgender Men, without ever really acknowledging that Cisgender Women can be just as awful and invalidating. If there's an opportunity to take a pot shot at cishets, in particular cishet men, this book takes it. I'm a little disappointed, really. For a book that prioritizes liberation, equity, and justice, some of its politics around gender and sexuality when it pertains to cisgender and heterosexual people are severely lacking. Cisgender, Heterosexual Men are not a monolith. Men, as a class, are not privileged solely on the base of their gender and the author sort of gets that? A little? But it's hard to take it seriously when a chapter is subtitled something along the lines of "That's enough cis men for the day" or something like that.

At one point an antagonist is taken out and the badass one liner that's said is "is anyone else tired of listening to straight men talk?" (close approximation to what was said) as if the character's sexuality has anything to do with the evil he was committing, or trying to commit. Like, I get it. I really do. I'm a nonbinary transmasc person that's definitely not straight myself so I /get it/ but it really just seems over the top, unnecessary, and sometimes just mean spirited.

Anyway, tl;dr,
The Witch King has immense potential to be a truly great story with a real engaging protagonist... but isn't there yet. It needed a few more rounds of editing or some other eyes on the story before it'll reach that point. Ultimately, I liked it for what it /could have been/ rather than what it /actually is/ and I don't really regret purchasing the book... but I won't be continuing with the series.

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Very captivating!

Revisado: 12-15-21

I usually listen to audiobooks while I'm working - it was /very/ difficult to pause and save this one for more than one shift! The story is filled with lots of twists and turns (no spoilers!) that keep you wanting to find out just how far everything goes. I personally like that the romance aspect of the story is not really the main focal point, but still plays an important part of the plot. It can be a little slow in the beginning, and some of the miscommunication issues between Kiem and Jainan at the start are a little frustrating but they do make sense. Once things really kick off it's difficult to set it aside. I was a little sad to finish it!

Raphael Corkhill does a wonderful job narrating the story. I especially appreciated being able to differentiate who was talking based on his tone and accents.

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