Audio Book Review: The Night Realm By Annette Marie

The Night Realm
(Spell Weaver #1)
By Annette Marie

Narrators: Melissa Moran & Greg Tremblay
Length: 11 hours and 32 minutes

From the author of the Steel & Stone series comes a new urban fantasy adventure with breathtaking magic, heart-stopping action, and forbidden attraction in a world where secrets are the most dangerous weapons of all.

As a nymph living in exile among humans, Clio has picked up all sorts of unique survival skills. But stealing from the most dangerous spell weavers in the Underworld? Not so much.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what she has to do to earn a ticket back home.

Conning her way into the Underworld may have gone pretty well, but now she’s got a new problem. His name is Lyre and he’s a sinfully alluring incubus, a dangerously skilled spell weaver, and the only thing standing between her and stealing some damn magic.

Maneuvering around him without blowing her cover shouldn’t be that difficult, but chaos has been dogging her every step, monsters hide behind beautiful faces, and Lyre keeps saving her neck even though they’re enemies. Kind of enemies? Either way, her mission is getting complicated fast, and in the Underworld, even one mistake could prove fatal.

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Check Out The Other Books In This Trilogy:

(Linked to my review!)

My Review:

This novel felt different from all the other novels I've read by this author which I was particularly strange considering how this is a prequel series to her Steel & Stone series (which I adored). This could also have been due to the fact that I've been hyping this book up in my head for months now waiting for the audio books to be released.

I've grown accustomed to reading about strong and goal-oriented women in this authors novels, so having Cleo as a heroine was somewhat odd. She's powerful, but she's also a walking disaster all the while being manipulated by someone she calls family. She's naive to the point that is was getting frustrating and annoying. In the beginning, it was coincidence after disaster after pure luck with all the situations she got into. What I can say about her, off that bat, is that she's brave and will bulldoze through anything after she's set her mind to it. With all that being said, I can imagine she's going to become a kick*ss heroine due to her circumstances as this trilogy progresses, but it still felt off.

In the Steel & Stone series, Lyre is a bad*ss spell weaver. This trilogy takes place a few years before that, so I couldn't realistically expect him to be the same person. With all that being said, something also felt off about him. It's probably because I was looking for the carefree-but-still-strung-tight Lyre and what I got was a succubus who was still finding his way in life while trying to balance his controlling family and how out of place he felt there. It's going to be interesting to see how he evolves and becomes the mysterious Lyre we got to know in the Steel & Stone series.

The ending had me on the edge of my seat because I was suspecting a plot twist that, thankfully, never came to pass. This author sure does know how to write scary and powerful villains that kept me on my toes waiting for the other shoe to drop for most of the novel. I liked how nicely the next book in this trilogy was set up.

The Audio Book:

The overall narration for both narrators was nice, but I didn't love the voice Melissa Moran did for Lyre. Maybe it's because I recently listened to the companion novel to the steel & stone series (also narrated by Greg Tremblay) and his Lyre voice is somewhat better.

My Rating:

&½