A Fantasy Series With Bite

Snapped out of a fantasy rut I'd been in with this series I just finished. Clocking in at 93 hours, 24 minutes, the Empire of the Vampire series delivered a ton of value per audiobook credit. Jay Kristoff built a world that clicked with me from chapter one. Darker than I tend to favor, but the mix of characters, dark humor, and great dialogue balanced it out perfectly. I'm putting this up there with The Expanse as my favorite series read of the year so far. This was the type of story that was incredibly effective at both world and character building. The more I learned about both, the more invested I found myself as the stakes continued to climb through the series. Best of all, I found the payoff perfectly satisfying in a way I seldom do in other series.

These books feature some of the most memorable dialogue I've come across — I'll be quoting it for years. (Be warned, it's colorful and can walk a fine line, so your mileage may vary.) If you like fantasy with real teeth to it, dark but with heart and humor holding it together, this is for you. The audiobook is wonderfully narrated too, with Damian Lynch carrying all three books and Shakira Shute joining for books 2 and 3 as an additional POV. I'll be thinking about this world, this cast, and the way the story was told for a good long while. I'm already recommending it to my reading buddies with similar taste, and I'm already digging into what else he's written and currently working on, looking forward to more stories from this author.