A review by amyrene1530
Crown of Slumber by R.L. Perez

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 I thoroughly enjoyed this! I love a good fairytale retelling, especially when it's been refreshed, and I feel like this book delivers on that. Aurelia (the FMC) was rather annoying and hated Fenn (the MMC) for no good reason (especially when he helped her at every turn), which, after a while became bothersome, but not enough to make me stop listening. It was nice to see the female be the most powerful in the room for a change. I feel like we keep getting all-powerful males with shadow powers in the romantasy genre, so this was a refreshing change. The fake engagement, warring courts, and one-bed tropes all had me kicking my feet in happiness. The spice was a solid 2/5 on the spice scale, but what we got was absolutely fabulous! The world-building made this feel like a place we could really go to rather than just giving us the basics to fill in at our leisure, and it made me ravenous for more of this world.

The narrators did a fantastic job of differentiating voices, so we clearly knew who was speaking, and I felt they did a decent job of voicing the opposite sex, as well.

Fantastic book, and I look forward to future books in this series!

Thank you, NetGalley, Willow Haven Press, and the author, for providing a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.