A Spell of Bones and Madness

The Nostos Series, Book 2

By: E.K. Condos

Narrated by: Stella Bloom, Anthony Palmini, Gail Shalan, Saleem Udean

Blood. Daggers. Golden chains.

Katrin's nightmares have returned. This time, they are not visions of the past, but the present. His present.

Castle Drakos hadn't been attacked since the ancient war. Until that day. The day everything changed. The day she became Queen. The day she barely escaped with her life in exchange for Alexander's.

Now Katrin must work with the crew of The Nostos and several unlikely allies to not only rescue Alexander, but journey through the depths of Aidesian itself to prevent Hades from being resurrected.

Because if King Athanas and the King of Harrenfort have their way, the fallen will rise.

©2025 E.K. Condos (P)2025 Podium Audio

Good plot.

Overall it was good. Discovering new roles and who was who. Overall recommend this read.

Where is chapter 28??

The book goes from chapter 27, then repeats chapter 6 for some reason, then continues on to chapter 29. Where is chapter 28?!
It is really difficult to stay invested in the POVs by Saleem Udean he just doesn’t give much range to the characters and I couldn’t stay focused on his chapters.
I feel like this book just lost the plot. I think this is a ‘bridge’ book but it had like 17 things happening with so many different people that I got confused about what time frame we were in, who’s adventure we were on and what the point of the side tasks were even for.
I enjoyed it for the most part and will get the next book when it’s available, but I was a tad disappointed with this book overall.

Where is Chapter 28?

Why is chapter 28 missing? Overall I like the story, and multiple POVs is interesting but at times difficult to follow. However, there was so much information given in the last few chapters and it ended on such a vague cliff hanger. It’s obviously an unfinished series, but author’s website says there will be 2 novellas following side characters before the conclusion in 2027… also, I don’t like the narrator for Kohl, the voice is so hard for me to listen to.

Okay

Performance: acting is good. Weird accent choices (Anders & Siblings) One of the performances has speech pauses in strange places (Kohl POV); if you have multiple voice actors, why not have them do all the speech for that character? It’s weird that in each chapter POV, you have that POV person do all the quotes of other characters.
Story: beginning was good, the rest, kinda boring, not as good as book 1, but it’s imaginative, good descriptions of scenery and magic. I just wasn’t as pulled into this book, I didn’t feel like I didn’t want to put it down like I did for book 1. (Kindle and Audible combined reading). Chapter 28 audio is Chapter 6, audio error.