Another one where my review of the first book in the series was probably or little (or maybe a lot) inflated but to be fair Gravesong was my first experience of an Andrea Parsneau narration and I was just over the moon about the quality of the narration that the book itself didn't matter as much anymore. 

I can absolutely say that Andreas knocks it out of the park with this one again. The range of voices this woman has is unmatched and she is just so good at bringing emotion into her narration. I think the only thing that’s debatable about the quality of her narration is how she does action. Just the way he she really speeds up during those parts, just delivering blow after blow can tend to make it a little harder to follow but I really like this stylistic choice as well.

Okay let’s get into the actual book. It starts off with introducing us to a new big POV character and also (afaik) a completely new character to The Wandering Inn in general, huntress Haeight. She is a young and very determined undead hunter that fights with two hatchets. And while I did like her, it also felt a little frustrating because I am here to get Cara’s backstory (I mean the series is also titled after her!) and yes we get plenty of her and when the two characters actually meet and the two storylines converge it was excellent but it did make the pacing feel off to me. 

There are also other POVs of returning characters from the first book which kind of amplified this feeling. Yes, you are used to slow pacing and a ton of characters with The Wandering Inn but I was under the impression that this series is more focussed, which to be fair yes it is because that’s not too hard, but I can’t help but feel that the pacing actually hurt this story a little bit. 

I think another big part of this is that the book just sets up a lot but very little actually gets resolved, except for the final chapter which does an excellent job of giving us a conclusion to one of the major mysteries that is being setup here, but then the book just ends. There is just so much left in the open which just kind of leaves you feeling frustrated. Maybe I just feel this way because unlike with The Wandering Inn I can’t just continue reading. 

I don’t know, probably kind of a weird rant overall and I make it sound much worse than it actually is. I still had a splendid time with this audiobook, so let’s get into that some more!

I love Cara as a character. Every time we got to see her in The Wandering Inn had me excited and I find it really intriguing to see how she discovers this magical world and tries to make a living in it as an upcoming singer/actor/performer. I love all the connections towards the main story and I especially enjoyed seeing the prologue of volume 2 from a different perspective (even though it was a very weird experience in the audiobook format) and I think the whole book gave me a lot of context of things I’ve felt like were missing from that part of the world within the main series. 

Another thing I always liked from The Wandering Inn is how stuff from our world is included into the story and we have plenty of that within Huntsong. 

What I especially enjoyed is how much more this series is leaning into the darker tones of The Wandering Inn. I certainly already knew that pirateaba can write horror but this one really exemplified it again. There are some bone chilling sequences in this one that just get you on the edge of the seat (obviously further amplified by Andreas narration) and also scenes of mental abuse/manipulation/deception that make you really uncomfortable in sort of the right way (if there even is one).  

All of this fits the very gloomy setting of this series and I just enjoyed more of the worldbuilding, which after all is one of the strongest qualities of pirateaba as a writer, of Noelicuts, the kingdom of shade. 

Overall I greatly enjoyed this audiobook, despite the pacing issues, and for fans of The Wandering Inn this obviously will be an auto include but to the rest of you: If The Wandering Inn as a whole is too intimidating to you maybe try to get a taste with this series I promise that at the very least the audiobook narration is gonna be something special. (and I very much plan to eventually do a TWI reread with the audiobooks. More Andrea Parsneau in my life can only be a good thing!)