Audiobook Review – Turning Darkness Into Light (A Natural History of Dragons, Book 6) by Marie Brennan (4.5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Length: 11 hours and 35 minutes
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Release Date: August 20, 2019
ASIN : B07ND3GFC3
Stand Alone or Series: 6th book in A Natural History of Dragons series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 4.5/5 stars

“As the renowned granddaughter of Isabella Camherst (Lady Trent, of the riveting and daring Draconic adventure memoirs) Audrey Camherst has always known she, too, would want to make her scholarly mark upon a chosen field of study.

When Lord Gleinheigh recruits Audrey to decipher a series of ancient tablets holding the secrets of the ancient Draconean civilization, she has no idea that her research will plunge her into an intricate conspiracy, one meant to incite rebellion and invoke war. Alongside dearest childhood friend and fellow archeologist Kudshayn, must find proof of the conspiracy before it’s too late.”

Series Info/Source: This is the 6th book in A Natural History of Dragons series (aka The Memoirs of Lady Trent). I got this as an audiobook through Audible.

Audiobook Quality (5/5): The audiobook was a joy to listen to and very well done. I would strongly recommend listening to this on audiobook if you enjoy audiobooks.

Story (4/5): This was a well done story set in the same world as the Memoirs of Lady Trent. The story follows Audrey (Lady Trent’s granddaughter) as she works with one of the dragonkin (Kudshayn) to decipher an ancient draconic text that reveals many life changing facts about the past relationship between dragons and humans. Of course, things aren’t completely straight-forward and it seems there is a conspiracy afoot as well. The story alternates between Audrey and Kudshayn and their lives and the reading of the ancient text itself. This was very well done and I enjoyed it. Some of the parts where the ancient draconic text is being read is a bit long.

Characters (4/5): I absolutely loved both Audrey and Kudshayn, they were fun characters to get to know and I loved learning their background. Both are intelligent and hardworking. The “evil” characters were just as well done, everyone was well filled out and had a lot of depth.

Setting (5/5): The setting in this series is amazing. It’s a very Victorian London type of world but where dragons exist and have recently become a part of daily life. The world-building is very well done and incredibly well filled out. We don’t get to adventure around like we did in the Lady Trent books but I still really enjoy the world. Brennan is an amazing world-builder.

Writing Style (4/5): The writing was well done and easy to follow. The sections of the ancient text are written in a much more formal style and I didn’t enjoy these parts as much because they were so dry…however, the different styles the book was written in were masterfully done. It was very well written.

My Summary (4.5/5): Overall I really liked this and would recommend if you are a fan of the Lady Trent series. I am not sure this would work well as a stand alone book because there’s a lot of background that’s needed from the Lady Trent series to fully appreciate the story. There is some amazing world-building in here and I really enjoyed the characters. I did miss all the adventure from the first books but was still very happy to have read this and would recommend it.