Kill the Queen (Crown of Shards, #1)

by Jennifer Estep

[Melanie]

My review and an extended sample of the audiobook are posted at Hotlistens.com.

I’ve been a big fan of Jennifer Estep ever since I read Spider’s Bite back in 2013. She really grabbed me with wonderful world-building and fantastic characters that you can’t help but love. Even after 17 books, I continue to enjoy spending time in Ashland with Gin and the gang. I even really enjoyed her Black Blade Trilogy, which is YA, and I’m extremely picky about YA series. She does have some other backlist series that I still need to tackle, and I will someday, but must tackle the shiny new thing first. 🙂 So, I was very excited to get a chance to listen to her new series, Crown of Shards.

If you know me, you know I like to go into books as blind as possible. I didn’t read the blurb, but I have seen a few tweets about this book before reading. So, I knew it was more fantasy and taking place in a world different than Gin’s (though Ms Estep couldn’t shy away from including a small Easter egg from Gin’s world into this story). I also knew there was a gladiator aspect to the story. That was the extent of my knowledge of this series going into it. I have to say, it is a great story. I’m so glad that I grabbed it.

So this is the story of Evie. She’s a somewhat distant relative of the queen. She came to live with the queen after she was orphaned when both parents died. She has little magical abilities in a world where magic means almost everything. She is looked down on by members of her family. She is often the whipping boy or forced to do things the other royals don’t want to do.

I really loved all the different species that Estep creates. The different shifters, which aren’t quite like what you think of. The one that stood out to me the most are the ogre shifters. They can look human, but can become ogres. There is a mark on them that shows what they can shift in.

This book opens with a lot of action and keeps up throughout much of the book, without being overwhelming. Evie has to go from being a low level royal, learning mostly things like dancing and being proper to later becoming a gladiator and fighting literally for her life. There is a lot of character growth in this single book. Makes you wonder about how much more she can grow in future books.

I really enjoyed this beginning of a series. I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.

Narration
Lauren Fortgang is again the narrator for this series (she also narrates the Elemental Assassins and Black Blade series for Jennifer Estep). She does a great job with all the different characters. I love her male and female characters. I think she’s great with all the different species that she’s done in this series (and in previous series). I did notice that she dropped the hint of Southern accent in this series when compared to Gin (which I just listened to recently too), which makes sense If you haven’t listened to Lauren, I highly recommend you give her a try.

**I like to thank the publisher for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.