Audiobook Review – Bound by Flames (Night Prince, Book 3) by Jeaniene Frost (2/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Size: 8 hours and 4 minutes (384 pages)
Publisher: Harper Audio
Release Date: January 27, 2015
ASIN: B00RAWC1X0
Stand Alone or Series: 3rd book in the Night Prince series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 2/5 stars

This is the third book in the Night Prince series, an offshoot from the Night Huntress series that features Vlad and Leila. There were so many things wrong with this book. Additionally, although this story wraps up the Szilagyi storyline, it starts a whole new storyline. So, this is definitely not the last book in the series.

I listened to this on audiobook and the narrator gives Leila a somewhat shrill voice (which is nothing compared to the voice she gives Leila’s sister…whenever her sister Gretchen talks my ears actually hurt). This didn’t add to my enjoyment of this book. A lot of the Romanian males also sound very similar as well. This is the same narrator that did the Night Huntress novels, but in this book she just isn’t as good.

Leila and her family are still in hiding from Vlad’s greatest enemy, Szilagyi. Until they can finally hunt Szilagyi down and destroy him none of them will be safe.

Yep, the above is about the extent of this storyline, not much more to it than that. Oh wait, I should mention that Leila gets kidnapped…again. Is anyone surprised?

Although I have always enjoyed Vlad as a character, I have really never liked Leila. She just seems so overly dramatic, whiny, incredibly ditsy and annoying (her electricity power is cool though).

I was happy to see that Vlad and Leila do grow in their relationship some. However, I did feel like Vlad was a domineering jerk still and that Leila was way too accepting. Also Leila’s angst over her actions while she was held captive (yes she is kidnapped yet again because that is the only storyline that works for this series I guess) was absolutely ridiculous.

I had huge issues with things like the one I mentioned in my update on Goodreads. For example potential rape is portrayed as being more devastating than actually being skinned alive. I agree rape is awful…even being threatened with rape is awful, but being skinned alive will kill you (okay maybe not if you are a vampire)…but as far as torture goes I feel like they are kind of on different scales. I also had problems with a scene involving Leila, Maximus, and duct tape; way too much time was spent on this scene, there is just too much detail, and I just didn’t care all that much…seriously this was like a 40 minute scene in the audiobook.

All in all I thought most of this book was more campy than interesting or engaging. Some of the scenes are just so over the top. The dialogue between the characters also came off as awkward, stilted, and just plain ridiculous at times.

Overall this was an awful book. I understand I am in the minority here…but come on…nothing about this book was good. The storyline was similar to all the other storylines in this series, the characters were annoying, and the plot pretty much wasn’t there. To be fair I didn’t really like the second book in this series either. I just read this one because it was supposed to wrap up the series…which it did not do. I definitely won’t be reading any more books in this series. I would personally recommend skipping the whole Night Prince series. The Night Huntress series was great, the Night Prince series was a great idea that has been poorly executed.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– 2015 Audiobook Challenge