Empire of the Damned by Jay Kristoff – An Audio Book Review

Gabriel de León has saved the Holy Grail from death, but his chance to end the endless night is lost.

After turning his back on his silversaint brothers once and for all, Gabriel and the Grail set out to learn the truth of how Daysdeath might finally be undone.

But the last silversaint faces peril, within and without. Pursued by children of the Forever King, drawn into wars and webs centuries in the weaving, and ravaged by his own rising bloodlust, Gabriel may not survive to see the truth of the Grail revealed.

A truth that may be too awful for any to imagine.

Author: Jay Kristoff

Narrators: Damian Lynch, Shakira Shute

Audio Release Date: February 29th 2024

Publisher: Harper Voyager

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Empire of the Vampire #2

Running Time: 31hrs 33mins (654 pages on kindle)

My Rating of ‘Empire of the Damned’: 3 out of 5

Purchase: Audible, Amazon

Review:

I went into this one high on expectation and left it feeling somewhat deflated without ever truly feeling I’d gotten out of this book anywhere close to what I had hoped. Empire of the Vampire (book one) was one of my favourite books last year and, unfortunately, I doubt the sequel will make my top 20.

Book two of the series very much felt like a book two. It could have been an issue with my memory as, in all honesty, it took me an absolute age to feel like I’d truly gotten back into the universe Kristoff was creating. There was a ‘Dramatis Personae’ at the start, which gave you a very quick run down of the characters and what they’d done, but I don’t feel it was as comprehensive as some of the other book one recaps I’ve been saved by in the past.

After I’d finally gotten my bearings, I found myself in the land of filler. Most of the book felt like page-padding and purple prose (which is lovely in small doses, but too much purple does not for the perfect experience make). That being said, Kristoff does have some of the best turns of phrase in the business, he also has some of the ‘as if any character would talk like that’ awards as well. Amidst the filler, the plot did progress, but it did so slowly and I didn’t feel a great deal happened over the 650+ pages that couldn’t have been achieved in two thirds of the time.

That being said, the ending was a tad more unexpected than I imagined and I am intrigued to see where the story ends (if book three is the end). I just hope that book three has a bit more life to it and rocks along at a decent speed rather than slow ebb this book produced.

I also felt the use of two narrators wasn’t quite for me. Getting used to the characters sounding one way, only to have them suddenly all voiced differently when the second narrator had their chapters, was very jarring. Even more so when you’re struggling to acclimatise yourself back into the world of Empire of the Vampire. I got used to it, but I’d still rather have had it just narrated by one narrator all the way through.

Overall, I would score this a high two out of five, but bumped it up to a three purely for rounding purposes.