Quick Take
- Narration: Saskia Maarleveld is a skilled performer who handles the expanded cast of characters and the dual-protagonist structure with clear differentiation across nearly seventeen and a half hours.
- Themes: Political ambition, identity and performance, loyalty under pressure, moral compromise
- Mood: Atmospheric and relentlessly tense
- Verdict: A worthy sequel that expands the Shadow Game series’ world considerably, best experienced after Ace of Shades, which is essential context.
I came to King of Fools having already spent time in New Reynes with Ace of Shades. Amanda Foody’s City of Sin has a specific texture, baroque, morally compromised, architecturally intricate, and returning to it in the second book felt less like starting over and more like finding your way around a neighborhood you almost know. I listened to most of this one during a long train journey, which suited both the duration and the world’s specific atmosphere: all forward momentum and no clean exits.
King of Fools picks up shortly after the first book’s ending. Enne Salta has survived the Shadow Game by becoming someone she didn’t plan to be. Levi Glaisyer’s freedom came at a cost he’s still calculating. The chancellor of the republic is dead, both protagonists have bounties on their heads, and the political landscape of New Reynes is fracturing in ways that will require them to become something more than reluctant allies. The city itself is as much a character as either of them, a place of rival crime families, secret societies, binding oaths, and institutional corruptions running so deep that legitimate authority is almost a fiction.
Our Take on King of Fools
The second book in a series faces specific structural pressures. It must justify the world it’s expanding while delivering enough forward momentum to warrant the reader’s continued investment. Foody handles this by using Enne and Levi’s separated storylines to pull in different directions through the city simultaneously. Levi enters an unlikely partnership with the estranged son of Mafia donna Vianca Augustine, which means negotiating the empire-building ambitions he’s always carried against the reality of what that ambition requires. Enne, still bound by Vianca’s oath, has to perform two contradictory roles, darling lady and cunning street lord, while genuinely unsure which side of herself reflects the truth.
That question of authenticity, of which persona reflects the truth, is the novel’s most interesting throughline. Foody’s treatment is nuanced: both sides of Enne are real, and the impossibility of holding them simultaneously in a world that demands legible identity is what generates her arc’s most compelling moments. This is YA fiction that takes its genre’s central concerns, who am I, who do I have to become, and grounds them in a politically specific world where the consequences are material rather than merely personal.
Why Listen to King of Fools
Saskia Maarleveld was an excellent choice as narrator for this series. She maintains distinct vocal profiles for a significantly expanded cast in the second book without losing the character differentiation that makes complex ensemble fiction work in audio. At seventeen and a half hours, this is a serious time investment, and Maarleveld’s consistency over that runtime is one of the audiobook’s genuine strengths. The pacing of the reading matches the novel’s own rhythm, urgent when urgency is warranted, slower and more deliberate in the character-building sequences that prepare the eventual confrontations.
One reviewer who read Ace of Shades first noted how much the world expands in this installment, more of the South Side, more of the city’s history, more of the secret society infrastructure underlying the visible power structures. For listeners who responded to the world-building in the first book, this expansion is a significant part of the sequel’s appeal. Foody has clearly thought carefully about how New Reynes works at every level, and the second book continues to reveal that structural thinking.
What to Watch For in the Price of Ambition
The novel’s handling of the relationship between Enne and Levi is worth close attention. Foody avoids the easiest version of the romantic arc, the one where romantic tension is generated primarily by misunderstandings and resolved by declaration, and instead builds the relationship through what both characters are willing to sacrifice and what they discover they cannot compromise on. By the end of the second book, the impossible choice the synopsis describes has genuine weight because of the specific things each character has been shown to value.
New characters introduced in King of Fools arrive with their own agendas and histories that complicate the established dynamics in productive ways. One reviewer praised the development of even the antagonist characters, noting that the series avoids the flat villainy that weakens a lot of YA fiction. That’s accurate: Foody’s world is populated by people with comprehensible motivations, which makes the moral compromises Enne and Levi make feel genuinely difficult rather than situationally convenient.
Who Should Listen to King of Fools
This is specifically for listeners who have already engaged with Ace of Shades and want to continue. Starting here without the first book is not recommended, the relationships, power structures, and character histories that King of Fools builds on are established in the first volume, and arriving without that context will mean missing most of what makes the sequel’s developments meaningful.
For listeners already invested in the Shadow Game series, King of Fools delivers exactly what a second installment should: it rewards the reader’s existing investment, expands the world credibly, and leaves enough genuinely unresolved that the third book feels necessary rather than inevitable. The series is among the more sophisticated entries in contemporary YA fantasy world-building, and this volume represents it at its most fully realized.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can King of Fools be listened to without reading Ace of Shades first?
No, not effectively. The relationships, power dynamics, and character histories at the center of this book are all established in the first volume. Foody does not extensively recap what came before, the narrative assumes you remember the Shadow Game, Vianca’s binding oath, and how Enne and Levi’s alliance formed. Starting with King of Fools will mean missing most of the context that makes its events meaningful.
How does Saskia Maarleveld handle the expanded cast in book two compared to the first audiobook?
Maarleveld manages the larger cast well. She maintains consistent vocal differentiation between established characters and introduces new ones clearly enough that listeners can track who is speaking in ensemble scenes. At nearly seventeen and a half hours, the performance demands real sustained consistency, and she delivers it.
Is the romance between Enne and Levi resolved in this book, or is it still developing?
Still developing. Foody builds the relationship through what the characters demonstrate to each other across the novel’s events rather than through direct romantic resolution. The relationship has clearly deepened from book one, but King of Fools is a middle book in the series and handles the romantic arc accordingly, progress without full arrival.
How dark does King of Fools get compared to the first book? Is it appropriate for the younger end of the YA audience?
The book handles mature themes including political violence, organized crime, and the moral costs of ambition. It is not gratuitously graphic, but the world is genuinely dangerous and characters face real consequences. Foody treats her YA audience as capable of engaging with moral complexity. Parents of younger teens should preview it, but the book sits solidly within YA’s established boundaries for its subgenre.
