Kill the Queen Audiobook
By: Jennifer Estep
Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang
Published by: Harper Audio 10/02/18
Kill the Queen Audiobook Sample
Kill the Queen Audiobook
4 Hearts
I’ve been a big fan of Jennifer Estep ever since I read Spider’s Bite back in 2013. She really grabbed me with wonderful world-building and fantastic characters that you can’t help but love. Even after 17 books, I continue to enjoy spending time in Ashland with Gin and the gang. I even really enjoyed her Black Blade Trilogy, which is YA, and I’m extremely picky about YA series. She does have some other backlist series that I still need to tackle, and I will someday, but must tackle the shiny new thing first. 🙂 So, I was very excited to get a chance to listen to her new series, Crown of Shards.
If you know me, you know I like to go into books as blind as possible. I didn’t read the blurb, but I have seen a few tweets about this book before reading. So, I knew it was more fantasy and taking place in a world different than Gin’s (though Ms Estep couldn’t shy away from including a small Easter egg from Gin’s world into this story). I also knew there was a gladiator aspect to the story. That was the extent of my knowledge of this series going into it. I have to say, it is a great story. I’m so glad that I grabbed it.
So this is the story of Evie. She’s a somewhat distant relative of the queen. She came to live with the queen after she was orphaned when both parents died. She has little magical abilities in a world where magic means almost everything. She is looked down on by members of her family. She is often the whipping boy or forced to do things the other royals don’t want to do.
I really loved all the different species that Estep creates. The different shifters, which aren’t quite like what you think of. The one that stood out to me the most are the ogre shifters. They can look human, but can become ogres. There is a mark on them that shows what they can shift in.
This book opens with a lot of action and keeps up throughout much of the book, without being overwhelming. Evie has to go from being a low level royal, learning mostly things like dancing and being proper to later becoming a gladiator and fighting literally for her life. There is a lot of character growth in this single book. Makes you wonder about how much more she can grow in future books.
I really enjoyed this beginning of a series. I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.
Kill the Queen Audiobook Narration
5 Hearts
Lauren Fortgang is again the narrator for this series (she also narrates the Elemental Assassins and Black Blade series for Jennifer Estep). She does a great job with all the different characters. I love her male and female characters. I think she’s great with all the different species that she’s done in this series (and in previous series). I did notice that she dropped the hint of Southern accent in this series when compared to Gin (which I just listened to recently too), which makes sense If you haven’t listened to Lauren, I highly recommend you give her a try.
Jennifer Estep is a New York Times bestselling author, prowling the streets of her imagination in search of her next fantasy idea.
Jennifer has worked as a features writer and page designer for a daily newspaper and has more than 10 years of journalism experience. She’s a member of Romance Writers of America, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and other writing groups.
Jennifer’s books have been featured in Cosmopolitan, Entertainment Weekly, Southern Living, and a variety of other publications.
Jennifer writes the Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series for Pocket Books. The books focus on Gin Blanco, an assassin codenamed the Spider who can control the elements of Ice and Stone. When she’s not busy killing people and righting wrongs, Gin runs a barbecue restaurant called the Pork Pit in the fictional Southern metropolis of Ashland. The city is also home to giants, dwarves, vampires, and elementals – Air, Fire, Ice, and Stone.
Lauren Fortgang lives in New York City where she currently works as an actor and voiceover artist. Born in Wilmington, DE, she split her time there with an upbringing in a variety of rural towns in northern California. She had early training at A.C.T.’s Young Conservatory and is a graduate of Fordham University: College at Lincoln Center, where she majored in theater. Her curiosity for finding new niches in the industry has afforded her a broad career spectrum, both in and out of the ‘spotlight’ as actor, singer, spokesperson audiobook narrator, podcaster, and even costume designer.
Television credits include roles on Law and Order (NBC), Law and Order: SVU (NBC), and Important Things with Demetri Martin (Comedy Central). Recent theatrical endeavors include Creation Production Company productions of Escape (LaMama E.T.C. – 50th anniversary season) and Laughing Pictures (The Flea). She’s worked in a variety of capacities with a delightful smattering of companies headed by Fordham alumni and professors, and hopes to continue to support the work of this network of artists and friends. She seeks evolvement in independent films such as the recent Astoria, Queens and The Sunnyside Murders, both of which were featured at a variety of festivals, including Queens World Film Festival, NYTVF, Breckenridge Festival of Film and NewFest.
Her commercial gigs cover national on-camera and voiceover spots for Ikea, Walmart, TJ Maxx and Woolite. She’s given voice to material spanning from video games to textbooks and works regularly as an audiobook narrator at Audible, Hachette, Penguin, Random House and beyond, having recorded roughly 150 unabridged titles and some 200 segments for monthly programming. She has received recognition from Audiofile Magazine, the Audio Publishers Association, the American Library Association and the Young Aldult Library Services Association, USA Today and Publisher’s Weekly.
A hobbyist-extraordinaire, she (at any given moment) might fancy herself a baker, gardener, chef or seamstress and plays coed touch football weekly.
Finally, no bio would be complete without noting the enormity of gratitude owed her parents for supplying her freedom of imagination and a bottomless well of encouragement during the ups and (more importantly) the downs. A couple of folks ‘having your back’ for a lifetime is no small thing…
Lauren is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA.
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