DNF Audiobook Review – Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, Book 2) by Rachel Gillig, Narrated by Lisa Cordileone (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 14 hours and 12 minutes
Publisher:‎ Orbit
Release Date: October 17, 2023
ASIN: ‎B0BWHCSXK2
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in The Shepherd King series
Source: Borrowed Audiobook from Library
Rating: 3/5 stars

“Gripped by a tyrant king and in the thrall of dark magic, the kingdom is in peril. Elspeth and Ravyn have gathered most of the twelve Providence Cards, but the last—and most important—one remains to be found: the Twin Alders. If they’re going to find the card before Solstice and set free the kingdom, they will need to journey through the dangerous mist-cloaked forest. The only one who can lead them through is the monster that shares Elspeth’s head: the Nightmare.
And he’s not eager to share any longer.”

Series Info/Source: This is the second book in The Shepherd King duology. I borrowed this on ebook from my library.

Thoughts: This was a DNF for me. I stopped reading this about 40% of the way through. After reading the first book in this series I found the magic system intriguing and the idea of the cursed kingdom interesting, but never really engaged with any of the characters very well. This book was worse for me.

We barely hear from Elspeth at all. I completely lost any connection I felt with Ravyn as well, he seems remote and we don’t hear from him much in the first 40% of the book. Instead we spend a lot of time with Elm and Ione, two characters I never really enjoyed from the first book. The first book had a dark beauty to it, this one just did not.

Ravyn is still searching for the Twin Alders card. Ione has lost her maiden card and her and Elm kind of join forces to work against the King while she searches for it. I didn’t get a lot more out of this than that before I stopped.

I realized as I was listening to this one day, that I kept coming up with excuses to not listen to it because I am so completely bored by the characters and story and feel absolutely no interest or draw to them. The book focuses a lot more on the odd romance (or at least attraction) between Elm and Ione and very little page space is given to actually fixing the problems the kingdom are facing. The balance between the story and characters felt off and the pacing was inconsistent.

I borrowed this from the library and have many other audiobooks I want to read as well. In addition to that, a lot of people were waiting for the audiobook. So, I decided to return it early and start on something I can stomach a bit easier. Hopefully others enjoy this more than I did!

My Summary (3/5): Overall, this was incredibly disappointing for me, but keep in mind I liked the first book but wasn’t a die-hard fan of it. This second book just went too far in the direction of everything I didn’t like about the first book.