Audiobook Review – The Killing Fog (The Grave Kingdom, Book 1) by Jeff Wheeler, Narrated by Emily Woo Zeller (3.5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 13 hours and 42 minutes
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Release Date: March 01, 2020
ASIN : B07Y8RFGJK
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in The Grave Kingdom series
Source: Borrowed Audiobook through Audible Plus
Rating: 3.5/5 stars

“Survivor of a combat school, the orphaned Bingmei belongs to a band of mercenaries employed by a local ruler. Now the nobleman, and collector of rare artifacts, has entrusted Bingmei and the skilled team with a treacherous assignment: brave the wilderness’s dangers to retrieve the treasures of a lost palace buried in a glacier valley. But upsetting its tombs has a price.

Echion, emperor of the Grave Kingdom, ruler of darkness, Dragon of Night, has long been entombed. Now Bingmei has unwittingly awakened him and is answerable to a legendary prophecy. Destroying the dark lord before he reclaims the kingdoms of the living is her inherited mission. Killing Bingmei before she fulfills it is Echion’s.

Thrust unprepared into the role of savior, urged on by a renegade prince, and possessing a magic that is her destiny, Bingmei knows what she must do. But what must she risk to honor her ancestors? Bingmei’s fateful choice is one that neither her friends nor her enemies can foretell, as Echion’s dark war for control unfolds.”

Series Info/Source: I borrowed this audiobook through Audible Plus. This is the first book in The Grave Kingdom trilogy.

Audiobook Quality (2/5): I really didn’t enjoy the narrator of this audiobook. She had a low, intense, breathy voice that just made the story sound kind of disjointed. Additionally, the non-character-spoken parts were done in this breathy low tone, while the character voices were much louder. I kept having to turn the book way up in volume while driving to hear most of the parts, but then a character would talk and it would be way, way too loud.

Story (3/5): The story here was decent. I enjoyed that we got to quest to a lost kingdom but found all the politics that happened after to be pretty boring. This is a fairly typical “person accidentally awakens a huge evil thing” type of storyline. It was okay but felt like a million other fantasy stories to me.

Characters (4/5): I liked a lot of the characters in here. Bingmei is determined to be good but her morals are a bit grey. She ends up accompanied by a fisher boy who was a good addition to the story and balances her well. I also enjoyed both Prince Rowan (a prince in exile) and Bingmei’s group’s leader. I did struggle a lot with keeping character names straight. Between the hard to understand narration and the fact that a lot of the names sound similar it was a struggle.

Setting (3/5): This takes place in a fairly standard fantasy-type setting that has a bit of an Asian flare to it (mostly because of the names). I had some trouble picturing the settings and everywhere felt a bit the same as they traveled.

Writing Style (4/5): This seemed to be written fine, the story flowed well and was well constructed. The style did seem a bit stark and abrupt throughout but it’s hard to determine if that was because of the style of narration or the story itself. It was a decent typical fantasy type story; nothing amazing but entertaining enough.

My Summary (3.5/5): Overall this was a decent start to this new fantasy series. I liked the magic system and the killing fog and also thought some of the characters were intriguing. The story was fairly predictable and slow at parts and the world/setting was a bit lackluster. I don’t plan on continuing with the series.