DNF Audiobook Review – A Destiny of Dragons (Tales from Verania, Book 2) by T.J. Klune, Narrated by Michael Lesley (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 16 hours and 41 minutes
Publisher:‎ Dreamspinner Press LLC.
Release Date: November 17, 2017
ASIN: ‎ November 17, 2017
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in the Tales of Verania series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 3/5 stars

“Once upon a time, the wizard’s apprentice, Sam of Wilds, got his happily ever after in the arms of his cornerstone, Knight Commander Ryan Foxheart. A year has passed, and while Sam’s been captured five or six more times since then, things are pretty great. His parents are happy, Gary and Tiggy still eat sass for breakfast, Randall is somehow alive despite being older than the gods, the King rules with a gentle hand, Kevin the dragon is as gross as ever, Morgan sighs a lot, Ryan continues to be dashing and immaculate, and Sam is close to convincing Prince Justin they will be best friends forever. Life is good.

Until it’s not.

Because Vadoma, the leader of the gypsy clan and Sam’s grandmother, has come to the City of Lockes with a dire prophecy written in the stars: a man of shadows is rising and will consume the world unless Sam faces his destiny and gathers the five dragons of Verania at his side.
And she brings along her second-in-command, a man named Ruv. Ruv, who Vadoma says is Sam’s true cornerstone.”

Series Info/Source: This is the second book in the Tales of Verania series. I listened to this on audiobook, which I got from Audible.

Audiobook Quality (4/5): This audiobook is well done. The characters sound like I imagine they would sound. Sometimes the voice the narrator uses for Sam gets kind of whiny and annoying but aside from that the audiobook is well produced and works with the story.

Thoughts: I set this aside at about 40% of the way through. It’s not that this was a bad read; it is very in keeping with the first book of the series. It was honestly just a bit too much for me at the moment and I plan on picking it up again at a later date.

This book starts back at the main castle and Sam is being harassed by his grandmother, Vadoma. Vadoma has brought a man to the castle who is supposed to be Sam’s true cornerstone, which of course sends everything into an uproar. Then there is a vague prophecy about dragons and Sam and the end of the world.

As I said above, this book was just too much for me at the time I was reading it. By too much I mean there was just too much goofiness, too many sex jokes, and too much crazy sex at inappropriate times. I felt like all the excessiveness was preventing the story from actually going anywhere… I also just kind of wasn’t in the mood for it but wanted to read a more serious fantasy with a more solid story. It ended up feeling more annoying than entertaining and I decided to just stop listening rather than get more annoyed.

So, yeah, this has been set aside for now. I will probably pick it up again when I am in the mood for a zany, goofy, fantasy story with loads of dirty sex jokes. For now though it was time to move on to something else. I think part of the issue was that we just dove right into the craziness and it was taking a really long time for any of the actual story to move anywhere.

My Summary (3/5): Overall this is very in-keeping with the first book of the series. The difference is that the Kevin the dragon grossness, the crude sex jokes, and the plentiful sex starts right off the bat. For some reason in this 2nd book I was finding it all a bit too over-the-top for me and it frequently ventured from hilarious territory into annoying territory. Not sure why. However, because of this I opted to set this aside and come back to it when I am more in the mood for something like this.