The Vampire Queen's Rebellious Pet Returns

By: Kuro Koneko Kamen

Narrated by: Chris Boykin

Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

Thane, Morana, and the others embark on a quest to Blue Moon City in order to team up with Prince Soren and develop a cure for the apocalypse virus. Unfortunately, the necromancer queen, Elysia, has her undead spies watching them every step of the way and does everything in her power to hinder their progress to Blue Moon City, from sending zombified polar bears to raising an entire army.

But the humans don't intend to go down without a fight, and plan to give the vampires a run for their money.

©2021 Kuro Koneko Kamen (P)2022 Kuro Koneko Kamen

enjoyed it

This is the second book of this series, although it could be listened to on its own, it really needs the back story from the first book (The Vampire Queen's Rebellious Pet), as the story picks up where the first one left off.

📖 Story comment: A well developed dystopian world full of traditional and non traditional characters.
I enjoyed returning to Morana and her quest to develop a cure of the Apocalypse Virus. The story is action packed and flows along nicely, scenes are full of vivid descriptions, well thought out and characters are well developed. Lots of action, adventure, new friends and enemies. We get more information on the Origins of the Apocalypse Virus and questions are answered regarding Thane's origins and he plays a key role in "turning things around".

There is a lot of story in this book, each chapter is quite long (running anywhere upto an hour), but I had no trouble keeping up and never lost track of the story.

🎧 Narrator comment: I enjoyed Chris Boykin's narration, he gets better with each book he does. There are a couple of places in the narration that felt a little stilted, but it wasn't enough to throw me out of the story. Overall he's done a good job on the narration. He has good timing and expression, and different voices for the many characters in this world. I never lost track of who was speaking.

If I'm being nit-picky constructive (not critical) on the narration, I wasn't a fan of the cracking knuckles type of sound effects, they felt out of place as there aren't really any sound effects in the book, and I don't know if it's in the text or not, but I appreciated the narrated "flashback / end of flashback" distinctions.

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⚠ I received a complimentary copy of this book at my request - it has in no way influenced my review.
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📌 Where does it fall on my personal scale? 7
• 1 not my thing • 2 didn't like the narration • 3 didn't keep my attention • 4 was good, but once was enough • 5 enjoyed it • 6 will listen again if i'm in the mood for the narrator • 7 goes on the "re-listen" list [4⭐] • 8 kept me up past bed-time [4.5⭐] • 9 recommended to family/friends [4.75⭐] • 10 own it in all formats [5⭐] • 11 keep a copy with me at all times [5⭐]
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