Four Ruined Realms

The Broken Blades, Book 2

By: Mai Corland

Narrated by: Jaine Ye, Sophie Oda, Greg Chun, Zion Jang, Roger Yeh, Donald Chang

THE KING OF YUSAN MAY BE THE GREATEST LIAR OF THEM ALL.
His sister’s ring is in his sights, and he will do anything to get what he wants. Even manipulating the five blades to steal it …
Bonded by deceit, the blades must rely on their skills to pull off King Joon’s pursuit or risk his legendary wrath.
A foreign rule of law stands between them and Quilimar, the Queen of Khitan.
Now they have one month to steal the powerful Golden Ring of the Dragon Lord. But that impossible task might be easier than trusting one another, even though their lives, their families, and the realms depend on it.
They can all agree on one thing: the king can’t win. But can they beat him at his own game?
Because for the blades, this time it’s not just personal, it’s revenge. Lies may have torn them apart, but now vengeance will bring them together.
Narrated by Jaine Ye, Greg Chun, Sophie Oda, Donald Chang, Roger Yeh, and Zion Jang

©2025 Meredith Ireland (P)2025 Recorded Books

The secrets of life

Amazing read . I am ready for part three. Some parts are drug iut but others keep you on the edge of your seat

Clever Plotting

The plotting was clever, though I still think I preferred the first book.

Loved most of the narrators. Only exception was Tiyung’s narrator - there were weird random pauses throughout the reading that made his POV chapters seem to drag.

Incredible story. ALMOST Incredible voice acting

the book is incredible and written beautifully. but the voice actor for Tiyung isn't my favorite. his pacing is a little off and pauses in odd places while reading a sentence.

Narration is all over the place.

No one pronounces world specific words and names consistently. It’s not world building, it’s the publisher being lazy about not providing a guide for a full cast of narrators.

“Daysum” is usually Day-sum but sometimes Dye-sum
The drug in the book is Lay-all-ee or Lahw-lee


Euyn - narrates in fits and starts. Pauses at odd spots and his intonation makes it difficult to understand sometimes.

Aery - speed her up to 1.25x and it improves.

Mikhail and Sora are fine.

Good!

This is really good, but the audio mixing is so poor. And the voice actress for aire is not good I’m sorry, I never say that but I hope she can get better. But I loved the story

4.5 ⭐️

This was such a great sequel for Five Broken Blades! The story picked up right after FBB and we dove into action pretty quickly. I absolutely love the writing style for this series of bouncing between the six POVs constantly - there’s never time to get bored of anyone, we get different perspectives of the action and the fallout afterwards, and not knowing whose head you’re going to jump into next makes you want to keep going. My favorite character from FBB reigns in FRR - my girl Sora has been through some shit, but she’s still strong and loving and protective, and I never want anything bad to happen to her. We did get a number of new characters in this book, but it wasn’t overwhelming because the plot always kept moving. There was fun new world building and lore and politics and magic that I can’t wait to see play out in book 3 to close the trilogy.

This is still one of my favorites to listen to on audio because of the full cast for all the POVs. The narrators are all great.

Thanks to Entangled Publishing and NetGalley for the ebook ARC! I purchased the audiobook myself, so I could go back and forth between the two while enjoying the stellar narration. I also participated in the Entangled Insiders Readalong discussion. This is my honest review.

A wild ride in dark fantasy.

The thrills and subterfuge persist in book two. We've grown to love them all, but can we keep them? Broken trust, death everywhere, and plots thicken. A solid continuing of an already enjoyable story.

Love them

I loved the first book and now I love the second book and can’t wait to read the 3rd book!

I love all the characters!

Excellent performances by multiple voice actors

Performances top notch. Was slower than the first book but the last two hours were awesome with multiple surprises. Looking forward to book three

The thieves

I enjoyed how this story played out. The ending made me a little sad and I am hoping the team gets their revenge in the end. The pacing has been great throughout. I felt like the last few chapters could’ve been a little bit longer but overall it was great. I think Royo and Aeri are probably may favorite duo of the group. I am glad we got to see their relationship further develop. I can’t wait to read the next book to see what happens to the team and if they all get their wishes in the end. The voice actors did amazing.