Cruel King

A Royal Elite Book

By: Rina Kent

Narrated by: Kylie Stewart, Aaron Shedlock

Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's Summary

He's no fairy tale king.

Levi

Here, little princess. I'm your king.

You have three rules. Bow. Break. Bend the knee.

Fight me all you want, but soon enough, you'll be chanting long live the king.

Astrid

One day I'm Royal Elite School's small fly, the next I'm hunted and left to die.

He doesn't only shred my life to parts, but he's also coming after my heart.

He thinks he broke me, but the new princess will bring the king to his knees.

Cruel King is a complete stand-alone in Royal Elite world. No audiobook should be listened to prior to this.

©2020 Rina Kent (P)2020 Rina Kent

I miss Shane and Kiera's performances.

I absolutely love this story as much as the rest in the series. However, I really miss the performances of Shane and Kiera. The combination of both voices in every chapter made the story come alive. The story is more real when only one voice performs female characters and another performs male character's. What I mean is....., there's something seriously lost in a female pretending Levi's comments in Astrid's point of view and a male pretending Astrid's voice in Levi's point of view. Many of us listeners put ourselves in the shoes of characters. No offense to the ladies, but "I like you bound, princess" doesn't do a thing for me from a female voice, but gives deep tingles from a male voice.

Great seriee

I think this should be moved up like book. or 4. At the end and after the epilogues of each character, it would be easier to follow.

So addicting ...

Cruel King was my introduction to bully romance and I found it twisted and highly addictive. It was dark and unpredictable and filled with secrets, lies, and manipulation. Levi King thrives on the whole world bowing to him. That is until Astrid crashes into his life unexpectedly and ignites something inside his black heart.

Aaron Shedlock and Kylie Stewart do an incredible job of bringing Rina Kent’s characters and story to life.

the narration was amazing!

Omg! Totally worth the read. I absolutely enjoyed Levi and Astrid. Although thier story is so tragic it only makes them beautifully broken and compatible for each other. Cheers! I can't wait to read the next one and Emerson myself 8n Rina Kent's world

Meh...

This was just ok for me, I think it was because of the narration; I’m just glad that the narrators were changed for the remaining books in the series.

Another Rina Kent must-listen!

Sexy, steamy, captivating and addictive as hell!! Of course it has to be a Rina Kent novel! Cruel King is another perfect dark, bully romance from this author. I couldn’t get enough of Levi and Astrid’s twisted romance and having it come to life on audio was perfection!

I might have squealed with delight when I was narration was performed by Aaron Shedlock and Kylie Stewart! Two of my favorite narrators who truly deserve to be on more audiobooks because they are freaking stellar! They did a perfect job of bringing Astrid and Levi to life. They made 9 hours seems like no time at all. LOVED IT!!

Not My First Rina Kent Story

Let me preface this by saying this isn’t my first Rina Kent story. I absolutely LOVE the series, especially the audiobooks. The fact that it’s not Shane East keeps throwing me off… Not to mention Keira Stevens sounds so different in this one. I’m also not used to the narrators reading the girl/boy parts. I’m the other audiobooks they alternate which makes the story come to life. I just couldn’t get behind this one. Highly recommend the book though!!!

YA steamy romance

I love Rina Kent and this is a good story but Astrid was annoying AF!!! I think if we heard more from Levi we would always hear about her “thoughts.” I’m just glad she wasn’t touted as “intelligent” because she’s mediocre at best.

The story is about a high school Astrid who moved in with her wealthy father after a tragedy. She of course moves to a “rich” private school (I wondered why she never had friends from her old life) where she makes 1 friend… has to go through insufferable time with stepmother and her daughter (whatever happened to Nicole? Did I miss something?) anyway after a few years she meets Levi King the star soccer player 🙄 (no one just meets a normal person, a good athlete maybe but nope! The captain of the team) and he of course falls for her and the story is about them navigating the craziness of poor rich kids…

It is a good story once it gets going but Astrid’s “heart” and her inner monologues were almost to the point DNF the book but I can see the appeal… glad I “persevered” 😂

If you like steamy high school romance, you will love this… I personally prefer more mature characters but those are very few…

Enjoy!

Story great narrators not so much

I like the story about this book but I wasn’t really happy about the narrators especially the female she was very robotic sounding and I felt like the mail was just not right for Levi’s voice.

A tiny spoiler alert


Also I didn’t like how they portrayed Cole in this book as they portrayed him like he was Xander and Ronan which is not what his personality is in the rest of the books.

Loved

I love Rina Kent stories. Spent the day listening to this one. Aaron and Kylie are both incredible. They always bring the story to the next level. I can easily visualize like a movie. Loved that the story is different then what I normally read/listen to. I went into the story (blind) which is a fun way to jump into a story!

1st time

this was my first audio book and it was fantastic, I listened to it everywhere I went what a great story

Voice

Voices are a little weird. Accents sounded funny and fake. Good story thought, would recommend

A solid canvas for this complex story

It was dark. Not pitch black, but it was still difficult to see the light–or the romance, in this case. Lust, there was plenty. Attraction, fascination, obsession. Love, hard to tell, besides the characters’ own words. But let’s say that there was some, it kind of showed in little things–Levi’s protective side, some gentler moments when they talk instead of arguing. It’s a dark romance, after all.

With a lot of side characters. And though we don’t see as much of them as we do of Astrid and Levi–and we don’t get their point of view–they all have their own agenda that doesn’t revolve around the main couple, and it was interesting. I wanted to know more about Astrid’s father, about her best friend, about the rest of the football team. They aren’t just here to move the romance forward. Even though some of them were really of the villain-y kind, with little to no nuance.

It wasn’t coming out of nowhere exactly, but there was still a twist near the end that brought the whole story to its closure, and it was nicely done. There were motifs, patterns, parallels, that created a solid canvas for this complex story.

As for the narration, the female narrator did a great job with the accent–not sure if it’s her real one–while the male narrator wasn’t always as good. It was still an interesting audiobook to listen to.

Finally Got to Levi and Astrid

I've read this series not in order. But the chemistry between Levi and Astrid was so on point as to follow the rest of the series. Astrid was the most sassy and baddy of the all the girls from RES. Levi was probably the second most...possessive of the guys. The suspense, the secrets the twists and turns were all there. They push and pull each other and I was living for all of it. The audio is different from the rest of the series, but I enjoyed it all the same. I volunteered to listen and review a complimentary copy of this. All opinions are my own.