The Grey Bastards is an adult fantasy following a band of half-orcs who protect the "sophisticated" from outside forces. Jackal, the main character, is part of the Hoof, or group, known as The Grey Bastards. He's a bit of a rebel, doing things under the Hoofs control but does so in a way that is slightly defiant. He believes that their chief needs to be overthrown, and he wants to be the one to do it. But when a half-orc magician makes his way into their ranks, things start to get turned upside down. Jackal is convinced to help the magician go after The Sludge Man, a crazy kind of creature who is holding an elf woman captive. And when Jackal and the magician go toe to toe with The Sludge Man, it's almost more than they can handle. But Jackal's best friends, Oats and Fetching come to their aid, they realize there are more things in play with the politics of the Hoof than they thought possible. They have to hold their cards close in order to find the most powerful way to keep their Hoof alive, or die trying.

I really enjoyed The Grey Bastards. There was humor (to the point I almost laughed out loud at work), action, a pretty good plot, and was character driven. I personally couldn't give it 5 stars mainly because I like a book that also lays out the setting a little bit more so I can feel like I am a part of the story, not just looking on the characters without much to go off of. (Although settings that take pages and pages to describe also aren't my thing, I just wanted a little more to get a grasp for the type of world that it was). I really liked that we got Jackal's perspective solely, and that the ending was a bit of a surprise, as well as what we thought was the main objective of the story wasn't exactly accurate. The idea of the breedings in this story was really interesting and new for me, since it's not something that most stories put as much of a focus on. The characters were interesting and felt real, and like I said, it was a character driven plot and the characters didn't feel underdeveloped or overdeveloped for this type of story.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the audiobook of The Grey Bastards through Libro.fm. The reader was engaging and kept my attention even when I was listening at work. He put the right inflections into words and scenes that I felt helped my engagement and was the kind of voice you want reading an adult fantasy of this content. I would highly recommend it!