Audiobook Review – Winterkeep (Graceling Realm, Book 4) by Kristin Cashore, Narrated by Xanthe Elbrick (5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 16 hours and 31 minutes
Publisher: Listening Library
Release Date: January 19, 2021
ASIN: B089P2Q38R
Stand Alone or Series: 4th book in the Graceling Realm series
Source: Audiobook from Library
Rating: 5/5 stars

“ For the past five years, Bitterblue has reigned as queen of Monsea, heroically rebuilding her nation after her father’s horrific rule. After learning about the land of Torla in the east, she sends envoys to the closest nation there: Winterkeep – a place where telepathic foxes bond with humans and people fly across the sky in wondrous airships. But when the envoys never return, having drowned under suspicious circumstances, Bitterblue sets off for Winterkeep herself, along with her spy Hava and her trusted colleague Giddon. On the way, tragedy strikes again – a tragedy with devastating political and personal ramifications.

Meanwhile, in Winterkeep, Lovisa Cavenda waits and watches, a fire inside her that is always hungry. The teenage daughter of two powerful politicians, she is the key to unlocking everything – but only if she’s willing to transcend the person she’s been all her life.”

Series Info/Source: I borrowed this audiobook from the library to listen to. This is the fourth book in the Graceling Realm series. There was a huge time gap between the publishing of the 3rd and 4th book in this series (nine years).

Audiobook Quality (5/5): This was an exquisitely done audiobook that I enjoyed immensely. The narration is beautifully done and really makes all the characters and the world come alive. I would highly recommend listening to this on audiobook if you enjoy audiobooks.

Story (5/5): The story introduces us to the land of Winterkeep. Bitterblue is drawn into some political troubles that involve Winterkeep when one of her ships (and two of her ambassadors) go missing in the region. There is a good mystery here, some adventure and action, and a bit of a love story as well. It was a very well balanced epic fantasy that I enjoyed a ton!

Characters (5/5): I am going to be honest, I only vaguely remembered a lot of the characters here since it’s been nine years since the last book in this series was published. This book does include a pdf list of all the characters, which was useless on audiobook (they read the list out at the end of the audiobook). However, I enjoyed the characters right away even if I couldn’t remember much of their history. They all have a lot of depth and are thoughtful and intriguing and just incredibly well done. The story switches between Bitterblue, Giddon, and Lovisa and I really enjoyed all of their viewpoints.

Setting (5/5): It was wonderful to journey back to this incredibly intricate and well done epic fantasy world. I again struggled to remember the history of Bitterblue’s rise to power in Monsea but there are enough reminders thrown in that I got the general gist of it. Most of the book takes place in Winterkeep and it was an intricate and interesting new setting for the story. Very well done world-building overall.

Writing Style (5/5): This is a long book but it never felt long to me. I enjoyed the different characters’ viewpoints so much that I never minded jumping between storylines. Everything wove together beautifully. This was a wonderfully balanced story and had excellent world-building, amazing characters, an intricate plot, as well as adventure and some romance. It was so fun to read another Graceling novel, Cashore is an amazing writer and I am glad she decided to continue the series.

My Summary (5/5): Overall this was an amazing read. I approached this book with a bit of trepidation since it had been so long since the last Graceling Realm novel. However, I shouldn’t have worried. Cashore has crafted another amazing Graceling novel with new locations and new characters, as well as some old favorites. I would recommend this whole series to fans of epic fantasy, although the later books were definitely more epic fantasy in tone than the earlier books were.