Court of Ravens and Ruin

A Brides of Mist and Fae Novel (The Shadow Bound Queen, Book 1)

By: Eliza Raine

Narrated by: Lia Holland, Gabriel Thorne

A defiant human woman. A dark fae Prince. Two enemies bound to a marriage that could destroy their world.

Reyna was born a valuable slave to the Gold Court, imprisoned her whole life in a glittering palace by sadistic, greedy fae.

When the palace is raided, she takes her opportunity to escape. But the raid is led by her worst nightmare. The Prince of the most feared fae of all; the Shadow Court. And he wants one thing.

Her. The copper-haired, rune-marked human.

Reyna doesn’t know why the Prince has kidnapped her. But when he announces her as his betrothed, she knows that she must escape before she is eternally bound to the monster behind the mask.

Only, when he takes the mask off, he isn’t what she expects. He’s lethal, beautiful and exudes sin. And he needs her.

Drawn into a deadly world shrouded in secrets, and desperate to keep her own hidden, Reyna must find a way out. If she doesn’t, she risks more than just death. She risks giving everything to her intoxicating captor.

This is the first book in the Shadow Bound Queen series, and is inspired by Norse mythology and Vikings. Sexy fae Vikings. It has Hades and Persephone, Beauty and the Beast vibes, and is slow-burn enemies to lovers fantasy romance with a burn-the-world-down-for-her hero. The series builds in steam and is filled with magic, myth, and delicious tension.

Brides of Mist and Fae is a brand new world from Eliza Raine, unconnected to the Dark Gods of Olympus.

©2022 Eliza Raine (P)2025 Eliza Raine

Interesting storyline killed by unimaginative VA

The voice acting killed this for me. I liked the world building and character development (though there wasn't a whole lot outside the main character). Some of the core characters felt superfluous to the story. I am intrigued by the plot so I an hoping for more in the next book.

The voice actor was just incredibly one note and didn't really have a lot of emotional inflection or emphasis. It felt off kilter. They did put effort into the character voice differences for distinction but it was just hard to listen to.

Couldn’t get past the narrators

Maybe I am getting to be a narration snob, but the female narrator sounds like a robot and the male narrator’s interpretation comes off fake sounding. Just couldn’t get past it.

Meh

The worldbuilding started off really cool and I enjoyed the beginning. That said, when 98% of your MCs’ dialogue is questions, especially questions that go unanswered, it feels extremely unnatural and gets irritating fast. There are numerous other ways to withhold information from your reader & between characters that could’ve been employed. The tension between the MCs wasn’t great and I didn’t feel much of a connection between them. The ending was extremely abrupt, as well. When it finished I literally said “that’s it?” I may have had a slightly better opinion of the novel if the narrator wasn’t so monotone and flat. There was practically zero inflection and it really dragged the characters down. I gave the second book a chance hoping the plot and characterization would really pick up and the endless questions would cease, and the plot has become a bit faster paced. Overall, average in my opinion.

Great story terrible narrator

Need another narrator for next book as her various voices were terrible and she didn’t put any life in her reading. Story was interesting, should just read the book

What a let down

This could have been a great story concept but literally nothing happened and then the book ended. I’m getting really annoyed by authors breaking up books into a series when it’s not called for. The FMC is also about as interesting as cardboard and bratty to boot.

The narrator was also super difficult to listen to. The inflection and tone were weird and almost robotic.