A pet peeve of mine is the common practice of advertising a piece of media as "Popular Thing" meets "Other Popular Thing". This usually leads to unmet expectations and disappointment for the audience. But with A Vengeful Realm, a comparison of A Song of Ice and Fire blended with Starz's Spartacus would be warranted. There are several aspects that seemed to be pulled from each work and melded together into this. My concern is that it might be too derivative of those works, especially as the series continues with Breaker of Chains, which is a title earned by ASOIAF heroine Daenerys Targaryen. I hope the series will be able to stand on its own without relying so heavily on those sources of inspiration.

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel. The characters were well drawn and complex. I will absolutely check out the sequel.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and First Torch Books, LLC for the audio ARC of the book provided in exchange for an honest review.