Daindreth's Assassin (AUDIOBOOK)

I love a romance where the characters aren't teenagers (or acting like them). LOVE these characters. Thadred and Amira have the most hilarious banter. The narration is really good for the audiobook. I'm glad I discovered this series.

Loved every bit of it, Elisabeth's voices (and the character she gives her characters, it's amazing). I am going to get all the other audiobooks she has ! (To Elisabeth: Thank you so very much for the audiobooks and the passion you put into it, I really felt like I was in it, when I listened, thank you so much)

I got completely sucked in; worldbuilding and characterisations are really fun to uncover as the story progresses.

After stumbling on Wheatley’s IG reelz a few months back, I’ve had the idea of trying one of her books in the back of my head. I have a lot of hangups about the romance genre, so I was a bit cynical about starting this read. But the author seemed like such a sincere, down to earth person, I thought I’d take a chance.

Daindreth’s Assassin has quite a few good things happening but also some significant weaknesses. The characters are likable, though I felt like the characters’ mistakes/shortcomings could’ve had more consequences. I found myself quite intrigued about the story world and themes. The themes and symbolism particularly kept my attention. Wheatley’s religious background brings unique uses of symbolism to explore and challenge traditional gender ideals versus the author’s understanding of fair treatment. This is most clearly seen in the curses the two main characters endure, reminiscent of the curse of Man in the Biblical account. The couple’s main goal of breaking each other’s curses rather than using these weaknesses to exploit/manipulate each other (which other romances would have no problem leaning deeply into *barf*). The symbolism comes across as empathetic rather than pontifications about sensibilities. Unlike other romances that have the tendency to portray unfair situations as “swoon-worthy” (winces), this novel makes an effort to portray characters actively fighting against such unfair situations, although learning from moral failures at times. Wheatley genuinely approaches the topic with a hope to drive the characters to be on equal footing rather than pinning the two against each other.

That being said, there are quite a few drawbacks to this novel. At times, the writing is repetitive, which becomes a little annoying after a while. Some crutch words also grated on me. Had the writing been a little more polished, I would give this book a sparkling 5-star review. The author is truly skilled at storytelling, but her prose, while generally good, has some errors and occasionally clunky details. Nothing particularly egregious on its own, but the number of errors did some harm to the story. A little extra polishing would’ve improved the book astronomically. That being said, it is a good book and I hope to continue reading the series. The action scenes were generally easy to follow and engaging, but a little bit of extra polishing would’ve made them shine. Some of the characters’ decisions as well as the plot elements in the third act didn’t entirely make sense to me. A few of the choices of the MC at the end kinda made her less likable to me. This was more-so because it didn’t feel like her mistakes were entirely congruent with the rest of the story. They pulled me a little out of the narrative, albeit in a forgivable way.

Overall, I think Wheatley has a lot of potential, as long as she addresses some of the editing challenges. I’ve already bought book two!

Great story, Entertaining and clear audio quality!