Quick Take
- Narration: Caitlin Kelly holds the full 13 hours, while the description hands one bonus scene to Zachary Webber, who appears nowhere in the credit.
- Themes: Bounty hunting in a fae-run city, a family half-recovered from abduction, betrayal by allies, a missing artifact.
- Mood: Quick, wry and propulsive, with the emotional damage kept just under the action.
- Verdict: A confident middle volume for readers already invested, ending on a cliffhanger that nobody on the page pretends otherwise about.
Four of the five reviews on this page were written before this audiobook was released. The recording is dated January 19, 2021; the responses beneath it are dated January 5, January 10, January 12 and January 16 of the same year, with a fifth arriving in July 2022. That is a text edition's review column sitting under a recording, and it explains a great deal about what those responses do and do not tell you. Karen Lynch's second Fae Games novel runs thirteen hours, read by Caitlin Kelly for Tempest Press LLC.
What Karen Lynch Delivers
Jesse got her parents back at the cost of everything else, and the sequel opens in the wreckage of that win. Their memories of the abduction are gone, so the answers she paid for never arrived, and the threat that took them has not gone anywhere. When the agency announces that a powerful fae artifact has vanished, Jesse reads it as connected to her parents' disappearance, which forces the question the book is actually about: whether she will accept help from the people who betrayed her. The copy raises the stakes in its closing line by suggesting it might take the goddess herself to save Jesse from what comes next, which is exactly the escalation a second volume is expected to promise and rarely states so bluntly.
Sarah K wrote the most reliable summary in the column, correctly identifying this as book two in the Fae Games series and describing the pleasure precisely: watching Jesse grow into the woman she is destined to become while managing her parents' recovery, her bounty hunting, and a fae world she was thrown into rather than born to. Another response fills in what the publisher's copy politely omits, that the parents are recovering from forced addiction to a drug out of Faerie called goren.
A 4.8 average from two votes cannot happen. Whole-star ratings from exactly two people can produce a 4.0, a 4.5 or a 5.0 and nothing in between, so no rounding convention reaches 4.8 from that count. The same page shows five written responses under a counter that reads two. Neither number can be trusted, and the practical consequence for a buyer is straightforward: the star badge on this listing carries no information at all, and the paragraphs underneath it carry all of it.
What Karen Lynch Gets Right
Goren, the agency, the artifact and the bounty work sketch a world that runs on jobs rather than prophecies, which is the most appealing thing about this series as the responses describe it. Jesse works for a living, the fae are a political problem rather than a mystical one, and the romance is entangled with people who have already proved untrustworthy. One reader singles out being level headed as the quality that makes the protagonist worth following, which is a rare compliment in young adult urban fantasy and a specific one. Another puts it as being everything they want to be, loyal and fierce, and adds that this installment puts her through the wringer. The consensus in the column is about temperament rather than plot, which is usually a sign that the character is doing the work.
Caitlin Kelly is credited for the recording, thirteen hours flat, covering a first-person protagonist, a fae court, a recovering family and at least one antagonist the reviews name without explaining. That is a single voice managing the tonal distance between rehab-ward scenes and a prince's audience chamber, and a listener choosing between the print and the audio should treat the sample as the real decision point.
Zachary Webber is named in the last line of the description as the narrator of a bonus scene, and appears nowhere in the credit. A second performer reading an extra scene is a real selling point, particularly in a series with a romance thread, and burying it in a closing sentence while leaving the narrator field single-name is a strange way to advertise it. Whether that scene sits inside this recording or elsewhere is not stated, and no response mentions hearing it. For a buyer choosing between formats, an exclusive extra read by a different performer is precisely the detail that decides the purchase, so it deserves better placement than the last line of a blurb.
Where Karen Lynch Loses Some Ground
Book one is not optional, and the column proves it by accident. The most enthusiastic response on the page is largely about Pawn, the previous volume, praising it as an exciting start packed with action and humor before ever reaching this book. The same entry calls the series the Fae Game series while the listing calls it Fae Games, which is a small inconsistency and exactly the kind that sends a reader hunting through a catalog for a series that does not exist under that name.
Gerry's response opens with its own spoiler warning in capital letters and then describes a scene involving a new phone and Prince Rhys. Readers still on book one should not scroll. The same response also mentions looking forward to the final installment, and a four-star entry states the problem in its title: a good story despite the cliffhanger ending. Expect this volume to stop rather than to finish.
Thirteen hours arrives as a suspiciously round number, and the listing offers no subgenre tags whatsoever, filing a fae-court urban fantasy with bounty hunting and a betrayal romance under nothing more specific than young adult. Combined with a release stamp that postdates most of its own reviews, the metadata here is thin enough that a buyer should verify the runtime and the edition before assuming they match what the reviewers read.
Who Should Pick Up Knight
Fae urban fantasy with a working-class protagonist, a slow betrayal romance and a plot driven by contracts rather than destiny is the specific combination on offer, and readers who finished Pawn already know whether they want more of it. The responses consistently praise the same things: pace, humor, a heroine who stays competent under pressure, and a world that keeps widening. Anyone who came to the series through Karen Lynch's earlier work is the easiest fit of all, and at least one reader here arrived exactly that way, having loved the Relentless books first and followed the author across.
Do not begin with book two. The description assumes an abduction, a betrayal and a broken friendship that all happened in the previous volume, and the reviewers assume them too. Listeners who dislike being left mid-plot should also wait until the next volume is in hand. Book two ends mid-crisis by every account on this page, so have the sequel ready before you start.
Questions Listeners Ask
Why does the audiobook show a 4.8 rating from only two votes?
Because that figure is not reachable. Two whole-star votes can average 4.0, 4.5 or 5.0 and nothing else, so 4.8 cannot come from a count of two under any rounding rule. Five written responses also sit beneath a counter that reads two, so treat the badge as unreliable.
Is Knight a standalone or do I need the first book?
You need Pawn first. This is the second Fae Games novel and it opens directly after the events of book one, with Jesse's parents recovering, a friendship already broken and a betrayal still raw. One reviewer here spends most of their space discussing the previous volume rather than this one.
Who narrates the Knight audiobook?
Caitlin Kelly is the credited reader for the full thirteen hours. The description also states that a bonus scene is narrated by Zachary Webber, a second name that never appears in the credit itself, and the listing does not confirm whether that scene is included in this recording.
Does the story end on a cliffhanger?
Yes, and the reviewers say so plainly. A four-star response titles itself around the cliffhanger ending, another asks why it is over already, and a third mentions waiting for the final installment. Plan on continuing straight into the next volume rather than treating this as a stopping point.
