Audiobook Review: Hidden Huntress (Malediction Trilogy, #2) by Danielle L Jensen

Title: Hidden Huntress
Author: Danielle L Jensen
Publisher: Angry Robot
Publication Date: June 2nd 2015
Part of A Series?: Yes, Part Two of a planned trilogy
I Got A Copy Through: I bought it via Audible!

Blurb Description: Beneath the mountain, the king’s reign of tyranny is absolute; the one troll with the capacity to challenge him is imprisoned for treason. Cécile has escaped the darkness of Trollus, but she learns all too quickly that she is not beyond the reach of the king’s power. Or his manipulation.

Recovered from her injuries, she now lives with her mother in Trianon and graces the opera stage every night. But by day she searches for the witch who has eluded the trolls for five hundred years. Whether she succeeds or fails, the costs to those she cares about will be high.

To find Anushka, she must delve into magic that is both dark and deadly. But the witch is a clever creature. And Cécile might not just be the hunter. She might also be the hunted…

**MY REVIEW**

There really isn’t much of a difference between reading an e-book and a physical copy, except for the fact that you might not have that gorgeous cover on your shelf. An audiobook, however, is a completely different experience, especially for a speed reader such as myself.

I read an ARC of Stolen Songbird almost a year and a half ago, when it was still being published by Angry Robot’s YA imprint, Strange Chemistry, and it being one of the first Advance Reader Copies that I read, I didn’t quite know what to expect from it. I had hoped that it would be good, but never expected it to be ALL THAT GOOD! (Read my review here)

 And then Strange Chemistry got called back, and I read an email from Danielle Jensen stating that she would be writing, and at the same time looking for a new publisher, and I guess waiting for the news to come to me that the sequel had been published, I lost track of the series and the characters that I’d never expected to fall in love with. *Tristan. Sigh. Swoon. Faint. HopeHeComesToLife*

And then I had to have eye surgery, and I started looking for my first audiobook on my Audible membership, and there, in my recommended listens was Hidden Huntress, back with Angry Robot. And I simply had to get it.

Hidden Huntress picks up a few months after Celine is left in her house, after getting ushered away from Trollus in the dead of the night, in the middle of phase one of the rebellion, is healed and then sent to live out the next part of her life in Triannon with her mother as an Opera Singer, which was the original plan, like everything with the trolls never happened; like all the things that changed her life, and shook her foundations never happened.

But Cecile has different reasons for being there – she is going to find Anuskha, kill her and beak the curse that is keeping her beloved and all her friends stuck Under the Mountain, but doing so will also unleash the King, Tristan’s father, his crazy yet supremely powerful younger brother and the rest of Trollus’s ruthless and powerful aristocracy. Breaking the curse means the end of Tristan’s endless torture, but also unleashing on humanity a war they cannot hope to win.

Hidden Huntress. Sigh. What do I say?

Thinking about the series in general, I could NOT love it more. I love how it actually had me genuinely believing that what happened to Cecile could happen to anyone at all (being abducted in broad daylight by someone you thought you knew, taken to a city under a mountain held up be a magical tree, and being bonded to a prince of a species that you only heard about in the tales meant to scare you.) (Yes, SERIOUSLY.) I love how Cecile and Tristan worked together as a couple so perfectly. I loved LOVED LOVED LOVED LOVED Tristan. I cannot even say how much. I just LOVED LOVED LOVED LOVED him.

Really looking into Hidden Huntress, however, I find that while I still loved that world, the characters and everything about it, I feel like it could have been better. Cecile, herself, could have been more. I guess she was my biggest disappointment. From being the badass, sarcastic, rebellion planning, magic using human that got a troll prince to fall in love with her she was reduced to the whimpering mess that pretty much every Disney Princess turns into once they’ve found their one true love. Don’t get me wrong, she was still doing things like looking for Anushka, but I didn’t like what being separated from her one true love did to her.

I really don’t have anything to say except I have a serious soft spot for the series, and I’m still in love with everything about it, and I can’t wait for May to come, just so that I get my hands on the conclusion.

If you haven’t read either, then I strongly recommend that you wait for book three and read them as a complete series, because then you won’t have to feel emotional turmoil. Or, you know, since I’m never one to follow my own advice, shout ‘BOOKS’ and dole out a bit more money from your always-getting—lighter wallet and delve into a series that will make you swoon!  

Stolen Songbird by Danielle. L. Jensen

Author: Danielle. L. Jensen

Publisher: Strange Chemistry (Angry Robot)

Publishing Date:  April 1^st 2014

Blurb Description: For five centuries, a witch’s curse has bound the trolls to their city beneath the ruins of Forsaken Mountain. Time enough for their dark and nefarious magic to fade from human memory and into myth. But a prophesy has been spoken of a union with the power to set the trolls free, and when Cécile de Troyes is kidnapped and taken beneath the mountain, she learns there is far more to the myth of the trolls than she could have imagined.

Cécile has only one thing on her mind after she is brought to Trollus: escape. Only the trolls are clever, fast, and inhumanly strong. She will have to bide her time, wait for the perfect opportunity.

But something unexpected happens while she’s waiting – she begins to fall for the enigmatic troll prince to whom she has been bonded and married. She begins to make friends. And she begins to see that she may be the only hope for the half-bloods – part troll, part human creatures who are slaves to the full-blooded trolls. There is a rebellion brewing. And her prince, Tristan, the future king, is its secret leader.

As Cécile becomes involved in the intricate political games of Trollus, she becomes more than a farmer’s daughter. She becomes a princess, the hope of a people, and a witch with magic powerful enough to change Trollus forever.

My Rating: 

My Review:

I Loved. This. Book. A perfectly executed, amazingly fun book with all the right ingredients, Stolen Songbird is officially my Favourite book yet of 2014!

When I think of what to say, what to tell everybody reading this, I find myself at a loss for words (and now, writing this, I’m hoping something does come to me) because there wasn’t even a single flaw, not a single second when I wondered whether or not this book would be a good one! So, let me start…

“Prince of Night, Daughter of Day, Bound as one the witch they’ll slay” (*shivering*)

Taken from her home, her family, and the life she was promised she would have, Cécile de Troyes finds herself in an unknown world. One filled with wicked beauty, devious charm and intricately entwined splendor- Trollus- home of the trolls- trolls that are only whispered about in the tales children whisper to one another in the dead of night. Forced to be bonded to Trollus’ enigmatic, charming and calculating prince, Tristan, Cécile finds that everything that was once completely hers, is not anymore- not even her deepest emotions. And why? Because it was foretold, that it would be her and the Prince that would break the curse; the curse that has kept the trolls in confines for centuries. The curse that has kept them longing, waiting and hoping for the day when they can see the marvelous light of day again.

While being a princess in one of the most cunning courts ever to exist is quite the contrary at to what Cécile has ever wanted, this Forbidden City and its Prince who are mythical to almost everyone who isn’t confined in it, grows on her with all of their splendor and wickedness alike. For in Trollus, Deception is a game, promises binding, power is the prize and Everybody’s playing!

I won’t ruin this book for you, by explaining what happens, even though I can- but suffice to say that this book will make you open it again, the second you’ve flipped the last page! You’ll laugh at all the brilliantly thought out fake quarrels, almost fall of your seat every time something new comes along, wish and hope that you were living in Trollus at that very minute and of course, wait desperately for the next installment just like me!

From a farm-girl to a princess, from a boy to a king, from magic to terror, from beauty to wickedness, from hatred to love, from foes to friends, this book will serve it all up on a Golden Platter!

My Verdict:

Just one more thing, what are you waiting for? Go ahead! I couldn’t give a stronger recommendation!   

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