The Lies of Lena

By: Kylie Snow

Narrated by: Natalie Van Sistine, Kieran Regan

In this spicy and dark romantasy setting BookTok ablaze, a young mage is captured by her mortal enemy bent on exacting revenge.

Lena Daelyra has survived by following two rules: never let anyone find out what she is and never wield her powers. After all, Mages are hunted for sport and have no laws to protect them. Staying alive means keeping to herself in the gritty outskirts of the kingdom of Otacia. Until the day a job gone awry lands Lena in ruthless hands, only to be saved by Quill Callon, a handsome swordsman from the wealthy Inner Ring. As Quill begins to train Lena to defend herself, her growing feelings for him serve as a cruel reminder that to reveal what she is would only be a death sentence.

Crown Prince Silas La’Rune has been a prisoner inside his own castle since he was five years old—after the murder of his younger sister. But the day he manages to escape the changes everything.

Tragedy rips Lena away from the man she has grown to love before she can confess her true identity. Yet, when their paths collide again years later, it’s clear that things will never be the same. And when Lena and other Mages are captured by the kingdom’s bloodthirsty heir bent on exacting punishment, the fate of Magekind will rest on her shoulders.

Full of forbidden love, passionate angst, and forced proximity, The Otacian Chronicles is a dark romantasy tale that will progressively get darker as the series continues. Please be mindful of the content warnings below and protect your mental health.

This book is a dark romantasy novel filled with romantic tension, sexy banter, and heartbreak. It also contains explicit sexual scenes, explicit language, violence, gore, torture, dismemberment, sexual assault, rape, loss, and grief.

The best start to 2026!

This series is phenomenal, if you haven’t read it, you need to go now! The audible version was the cherry on top and now I’m having withdrawals and going to have to read the other two books 🤣. Obsessed with all of the characters from this series, book one is just the beginning!!!

DUET NARRATION

Really great narration! The voices matched these characters so well. Such a phenomenal debut novel! Def check your trigger warnings as the content does have a few dark scenes

Captivating FMC

I absolutely LOVED this! Check your trigger warnings though before starting this book and I don’t say that lightly. Lena has easily risen to one of my all time favorite FMC’s. She’s sassy and foul mouthed. She protects those she loves and finally embraces who she was always meant to be. The narration was great! Some moments fell flat, but I think that’s how it was meant to sound. The voice of Silas is absolute perfection.

First 5 star read of 2026!!!

Loved EVERYTHING! The DUET narration, the writing, the yearning, the magic system, the plot twists!!! I was thoroughly entertained. This book is going to be extremely hard to beat and it just had to be the first one I read in 2026!😭 Cannot wait for the 2nd book!!!!

Great book, but really awkward beginning.

I loved this book but I have to admit I almost stopped reading it. The beginning has a lot of teenagers having intimacy… all the way and it’s described graphically. Listen I’m no prude, I love a good smut scene but them being kids was a HUGE turn off. The author keeps reminding us how young they are which is important to the plot later but makes it worse. I ended up just skipping all the spicy scenes when they were still young. When our FMC gets older however that’s when the spicy part goes out the window for the rest of the book. I get it teens have s*x. But I personally don’t want that to be the spicy part of my smut books.

After getting past that, the book has really nice plot twists. Is brutally honest in places and feels like the beginning of a really strong “crew” of characters. World building is also nice! I’m definitely gonna keep reading despite the weird first half of this book.