Quick Take
- Narrator: the description ends by promising duet style, while the credit names James Cassidy alone across 23 hours and 12 minutes.
- Subjects: A spreading curse, flesh-eating monsters, buried origins, slow-burn romance under an ancient malevolence.
- Tone: Gruesome, grief-soaked and claustrophobic, with the horror pressed closer than in book one.
- Bottom line: A punishing, character-driven middle volume that rewards anyone who finished Anathema and will strand anyone who did not.
Narrated in duet style, says the final line of the description. The narrator credit on this audiobook names one person: James Cassidy, alone, across 23 hours and 12 minutes. Duet style means two readers alternating through a dual perspective, and it is the sort of production choice a publisher advertises precisely because listeners choose by it. Podium Audio put the recording out on March 31, 2026, and whichever of those two statements is accurate, the page is currently telling a buyer both.
Duet narration would suit this book unusually well, which is what makes the discrepancy worth resolving before you spend a credit. Keri Lake's sequel splits its attention between Maevyth and Zevander, and one response calls out "the timeline and POV jumps" as the thing that kept 23 hours moving. A second performer is exactly how that structure usually gets carried in audio. The listing offers no second name, no cast note and no correction, so a listener has to decide whether to trust the credit line or the last sentence of the blurb.
Keri Lake picks up immediately after Anathema, and the column agrees on that much: two separate responses use almost the same phrase about the opening pages, one saying it picks right up where the first book left off. What changed is the emphasis. The strongest response describes a shift from the first book's "expansive lore and world building" toward something inward, arguing that Eldritch "takes those traumatic pasts and burrows each and every one into your soul." That same response calls the result "detailed, gruesome, heartbreaking, devastating and so so dark."
Two of the five visible grades sit below five stars, and neither of them is about the story. The four-star response opens by saying the book is great and then explains the deduction: "I'm only on page 253" and the pages are coming loose. The three-star response is titled "Will not look like the first book" and objects that the volume "doesn't match the first one as far as paper type, cover, or height," having already called the story itself wonderful. On an audiobook listing, both complaints describe an object nobody listening will ever hold.
Cassidy Carries Two Strands and Invented Words
Maevyth carries the plot and Zevander carries the damage. The setup is straightforward enough to follow even through a long middle volume: an eldritch magic has woken, the mortal world has turned darker and colder and famished, a curse is spreading through Foxglove Parish like a plague, and the only route out runs through The Eating Woods toward the boundary with Aethyria. What complicates it is that Maevyth's own past keeps surfacing, and each unearthed piece makes leaving Mortasia less likely rather than more. The Eating Woods themselves are both the escape route and the thing the trilogy is named for, which tells you how much of the book takes place inside them and how little of that passage is going to be pleasant.
Zevander is the reason readers keep using the word devastating. Deprived of vivicantem in the mortal lands, he slides toward madness on a clock, and the novel spends its length excavating a history the first book only gestured at. One response warns that it "goes deep into Zevander's past" and means it as praise; another says the book is openly character driven and that the author says so at the start. Anyone who wanted more plot velocity than book one had should recalibrate now.
James Cassidy, going by the credit, holds the whole of it: two point-of-view strands, an invented vocabulary that includes vivicantem, Aethyria and Mortasia, and a register that has to move between slow-burn romance and flesh-eating horror without either curdling. Not one of the five responses says a word about how any of that sounds, which is a real gap given that the copy itself is selling the production style. The one production detail the page advertises is the one detail no listener has confirmed.
Nineteen Days Separate the Reviews From the Audio
The series field carries the name The Eating Woods and no position, while the description states plainly that this is the second book in a trilogy. Every visible response treats Anathema as required reading, and the plot summary itself opens by calling this a sequel. Starting here would mean meeting a curse already spreading, a romance already established and a past already half-excavated. The page does nothing to stop a browsing listener from making that mistake. It also files the title under three separate categories and tags it as horror, while its own copy settles the question in four words: gothic dark fantasy, with a touch of horror rather than a genre's worth.
Nineteen days separate the three-star response from the release date of this recording. That entry was posted on March 12, 2026; the audio edition is stamped March 31, 2026. The print run reached readers first, which is ordinary publishing, and it means the star average attached to this recording was partly set before the recording existed. Weigh the written responses as opinions about a novel, not as reports from anybody who listened to this version of it.
Content warnings are handled by pointing elsewhere: the description says a complete list can be found on the author's website. For a book its own admirers describe as gruesome and devastating, sending readers off-site for that information is a poor arrangement, and it is worth doing before starting rather than during. One five-star response also announces up front that it will not be spoiler-free, so browsing the column carries its own risk for anyone still in book one.
Anathema Readers Get an Excavation Instead of Pace
Listeners who finished Anathema and want the trilogy's dark middle stretch are the obvious audience, particularly those who came for the world and stayed for Zevander. Gothic dark fantasy with a slow-burn romance, a distinctive magic system and horror that does not stay decorative is the exact combination the copy promises, and the responses support the claim. Twenty-three hours is a serious investment, and the people most likely to finish it are the ones already invested.
Hold off if you have not read the first book, since nothing here is designed to catch you up, and hold off too if graphic material is a problem, because the page will not tell you which kinds appear. Anyone expecting the pace of book one should expect an excavation instead. Duet or solo, twenty-three hours is a very long time to spend inside a spreading curse, and this one earns most of them.
Before You Listen
Is the Eldritch audiobook narrated by one reader or two?
The page contradicts itself. Its description closes by saying the book is narrated in duet style, which implies two performers alternating, while the credit lists James Cassidy alone. No second name appears anywhere on the listing, so check a sample before buying if the production style matters to you at all.
Can I start with Eldritch or do I need Anathema first?
Start with Anathema. The description calls this the second book in the trilogy, the opening picks up directly from the first volume, and every written response treats prior knowledge as assumed. Beginning here means arriving after the curse, the romance and half the backstory have already been established.
Does the audiobook include content warnings?
Not on the page itself. Buyers are sent to the author's own site for the full list, which means taking an extra step before pressing play. Since admirers of the book reach for words like gruesome and devastating in their own praise, sensitive listeners should take that step rather than relying on the single line about mature content.
