The crown’s game – Audiobook review!

Title: The crown’s game.

Author: Evelyn Skye.

Format: Audiobook.

Publisher: Balzer + Bray.

Page count: 407.

Release day: May 17^th 2016.

Genre: YA, fantasy.

Rating: 3 stars.

What is it about? (Summary from GoodReads)

Vika Andreyeva can summon the snow and turn ash into gold. Nikolai Karimov can see through walls and conjure bridges out of thin air. They are enchanters—the only two in Russia—and with the Ottoman Empire and the Kazakhs threatening, the tsar needs a powerful enchanter by his side.

And so he initiates the Crown’s Game, an ancient duel of magical skill—the greatest test an enchanter will ever know. The victor becomes the Imperial Enchanter and the tsar’s most respected adviser. The defeated is sentenced to death.

Raised on tiny Ovchinin Island her whole life, Vika is eager for the chance to show off her talent in the grand capital of Saint Petersburg. But can she kill another enchanter—even when his magic calls to her like nothing else ever has?

For Nikolai, an orphan, the Crown’s Game is the chance of a lifetime. But his deadly opponent is a force to be reckoned with—beautiful, whip-smart, imaginative—and he can’t stop thinking about her.

And when Pasha, Nikolai’s best friend and heir to the throne, also starts to fall for the mysterious enchantress, Nikolai must defeat the girl they both love…or be killed himself.

As long-buried secrets emerge, threatening the future of the empire, it becomes dangerously clear—the Crown’s Game is not one to lose.

My thoughts:

I’ve been wanting to read this book for so long, and kept not picking it up. And by this time I actually forgot what it was about haha! But I needed an audiobook, and this was recommended on scribd, so I thought why not, and started it!

I like that this book takes place in Russia! I don’t think I read many books taking place in Russia.

I absolutely love reading about competitions! So that was a big plus for this book! I really like that they each had a ‘turn’ after the other competitor ‘played’. The magic was very interesting, although not as much explained as I would have liked. To be honest, it is barely explained at all.

The characters were very interesting. But some of the character development throughout the books was very as expected.

This book reads from multiple perspectives, the  POVs from the contenders make sense, but some of the others are a bit confusing on audio, and sometimes it took me a while to realise who someone was.

I feel like the plot near the end became a bit predictable, especially some of the twists. And that is probably because we’ve seen more books similar like this one. I think I would have enjoyed this book more if I had read it when it released!

I really enjoyed the narrator for this book. I feel like his voice really fitted the characters and the accents well, without the accents being annoying.

I’m not sure yet if I should continue with the series. I mean I enjoyed it, but I don’t expect much from the sequel. It is only one more book and then I would have finished the series. But then there are many other series that I have more interest in finishing. If you’ve read the series, please let me know if you think I should read the sequel as well!

Have you read this book? What did you think?