Lauren Dedroog's debut audiobook arrives in a crowded field of romantasy, where fated-mates fantasy and sapphic love stories have each carved substantial audiences. A Curse of Crows occupies the intersection: it is a book with gods, prayers that shake the heavens, and two women whose paths are being woven toward collision by forces neither of them can fully see. As the opening installment of the Curse of Crows and Serpents series, this fifteen-and-a-half-hour listen sets up a world of intricate divine politics, layered betrayals, and the kind of fierce feminine energy that readers who loved the ACOTAR series have consistently responded to. The comparison to Maas's work appears in reader reactions, and it is not unearned, though Dedroog's particular flavor of darkness feels distinctly her own.
The novel gives us two leads whose differences are structural as much as temperamental. Diana wields prayer like a weapon; gods respond when she speaks, and that power has made her both precious and vulnerable. When a deadly sickness begins consuming her, she strikes a bargain that sets the plot in motion. Aedlynn is everything Diana is not on the surface: a weapon shaped by cruelty, stripped of pity, guilt, and love through years of darkness. The promise of this pairing is the slow erosion of Aedlynn's armor when a beautiful spy finds the hidden door into her heart. Dedroog handles the convergence of these two trajectories with real structural patience, letting the betrayals accumulate before allowing the tenderness to surface.
Gods as Real Participants Raise the Stakes
What distinguishes A Curse of Crows from the wave of romantasy titles that have flooded the market is the quality of its emotional stakes. Dedroog is not simply reaching for intensity; she is constructing a world where the gods are real participants, divine politics have human costs, and the concept of found family is earned rather than announced. Readers who arrived from the Tessonja Odette blurb praising "heartache and betrayal in a world of powerful gods" will find that description accurate, though the romantic tension is as central as the darkness. The series-opener structure means that not every thread resolves here, and some readers have noted the pacing in the middle chapters is more deliberate than the opening suggests. That is a fair observation. This is a book that earns its emotional payoffs by making you wait for them.
One reviewer described the reading experience as feeling like consuming an entire multi-book series in a single volume, which captures both the density of the world and the compression of the emotional arc. The praise from authors Logan Karlie and Mara Rutherford for the complex worldbuilding and rich prose is reflected in what actually lands on the page. The betrayal and revelation mechanics are well-constructed, and the tapestry metaphor the synopsis invokes is genuinely apt: threads are visible early that only make sense when the full pattern emerges later.
Mansergh-Wallace Splits Desperate Hope From Cold Control
Avena Mansergh-Wallace gives this production a genuine advantage over the print version. The dual-protagonist structure requires a narrator who can establish distinct vocal identities without relying on exaggerated accent work, and Mansergh-Wallace manages this with precision. Diana's chapters carry a quality of desperate hope, a voice that believes in the power of prayer even as the illness undermines her. Aedlynn's chapters carry a different register entirely: controlled, measured, with flickers of something unguarded that Mansergh-Wallace deploys sparingly and effectively. At fifteen hours and forty-two minutes, this is a substantial listen, and the narration sustains the investment.
The audio format particularly serves the moments when Dedroog's prose becomes most atmospheric. The descriptions of the realm where gods dance with mortals, the language of fate and betrayal, benefit from being heard rather than seen. Listener reactions have skewed intensely positive, with the "chokehold" response appearing more than once, and several listeners reporting genuine emotional shock at the final revelations. For readers who prefer to process emotional fiction through listening, the combination of Mansergh-Wallace's performance and Dedroog's language is well-suited to audio.
Dense Opening Chapters Pay Off Later
A few honest caveats for prospective listeners. This is book one of a series, and it reads as such: the world is large, the factions are numerous, and not every narrative thread tied in debut romantasy fashion. Listeners who need complete closure from each volume may find the ending satisfying but still hungry. The content includes dark elements consistent with the genre: violence, manipulation, and the psychological costs of being a weapon forged in cruelty. The sapphic romance is central and explicit in its emotional intensity, though the spice level is more emotionally charged than graphically explicit by genre standards.
The worldbuilding density in the early chapters is real. Dedroog introduces divine politics, multiple factions, and the mechanics of Diana's prayer-based power with some speed. Listeners who prefer to ease into complex fantasy systems may want to give the opening act more than casual attention. One reviewer noted that pacing is slower in the mid-section before accelerating significantly in the final act. That pattern holds: the setup investment pays off in the back half, and the "CRUEL. GENIUS. NERVE WRACKING" reactions in the review community are responding to that payoff.
Dark Sapphic Fantasy Fans Will Feel at Home
This audiobook is built for readers who loved the emotional violence of romantasy at its most committed: fans of Maas, Odette, and dark sapphic fantasy with real worldbuilding behind the romance. If the idea of two fierce women, one who moves gods and one who feels nothing, being woven toward each other through betrayal and revelation sounds like exactly what you want, Dedroog delivers on that premise. The audio format is a genuine enhancement here, not just a format conversion. Mansergh-Wallace earns her place as the voice of this series.
Listeners who prefer lighter fantasy romance, books where the darkness is more aesthetic than structural, or standalones that resolve fully in a single volume will find A Curse of Crows demanding. It asks for patience and emotional investment in return for payoffs that are real but incomplete until the series continues. For those willing to make that commitment, this is an impressive debut that suggests Lauren Dedroog has considerably more to give as the series develops.
