Atonement of the Spine Cleaver

De: F. E. Bryce

Narrado por: Kate Belsey

Rorax Greywood lives in the Realms and was trained to fight, kill, and steal for the House of Ice’s special forces unit, the Heilstorms, from the time she was ten years old. During her time as a Heilstorm, Rorax committed more violent atrocities in the name of her House than she could ever remember, but the blackest stain on her soul remains the Siege of Surmalinn—an infiltration and near genocide in the largest House of Death city.

Years later, when the Gods call upon Rorax to compete in the Choosing, a deadly competition that decides the next Guardian of the Realms, it quickly becomes clear the only House strong enough to protect her is the House of Death. Rorax knows she isn’t worthy to become the Realms’ new Guardian, so she somehow needs to convince the House of Death—and their brutally handsome lieutenant—to both help her find the next suitable Guardian and free her from the Choosing before the Choosing kills her.

A content warning to listeners; Atonement of the Spine Cleaver contains graphic violence, profanity, mentions of suicidal thoughts, grief, explicit F/M sex scenes, and an explicit F/F sex scene. There are printable maps and a glossary available on authorfebryce.com to help with any world-building questions that come up throughout the story.

©2023 F.E. Bryce (P)2023 F.E. Bryce

Amazing female lead, great integration of romance in a captivating story

I loved the world building and character development, fm and ff relationships, spice level felt right and balanced with the plot

OH MY GOD THIS BOOK IS INCREDIBLE

Easily my favorite read/listen of 2024. The plot, the world building, the characters, the romance, the narration, the spice. Everything was so freaking good. If fantasy romances are your thing, do not miss this one.

Can’t WAIT for Book 2

I absolutely LOVED this book. The plot is so excellent, and the characters are well written and well executed. I loved the slow burn romance and Rorax is such a complex main character. Can’t wait for book 2!

Wonderful, unique and epic world-building

This is a phenomenal epic fantasy read. The audible narrator hit it out of the park. It’s hard to find an epic fantasy that has a different, intriguing, complex world that hasn’t already been overdone or based on medieval Europe. Bryce did it magnificently. The story was also engaging, fast-paced, and engrossing from the beginning. I loved the queer normative world, the different races, genders, and wrinkles that were considered unique and revered. It wasn’t in-your-face or overblown. Just part of the world. Magical power is the hierarchy and what makes you more or less “valuable” in society. Even the characters you hate have depth and interesting background stories. And Rorax is a stone-cold killer who is also vulnerable and gruffly kind at times. High recommend.

Wicked

Great plot. The buildup was the perfect amp up. great fight scenes & loves scenes & strong females

Very enjoyable!

At first I wasn’t sure if I liked the slow pacing in the beginning, however it definitely paid off. By the time we are introduced to many of the other main characters, I felt as if I had actually gotten to know Rorax and some of the other characters where as if there was not as much time spent on this and the world building I feel like there would be too much to remember. I also feel like when books rush into things you care less about the characters because you haven’t gotten to learn about them for very long before they are thrust into the main storyline, especially side characters that may not be mentioned for chapters, so it’s great that each character is given time to develop! Also the narrator was amazing she really brought the story to life!

Intricate Narrative

Initially, I found myself on the cusp of abandoning this book, but a second attempt allowed me to appreciate its intricate narrative. There was A LOT to digest.
While the multiple POVs and character overload did cause some confusion in the beginning, the story's engaging core and sultry scenes eventually won me over. The world-building was impressively immersive, and I admired the array of strong, independent female characters.
Will continue the series.

Everything about this book is amazing!

This book is a chonker. 24 hour audio 😳 But every minute of it is fantastic! It reads fast and is completely unputdownable. These characters niggled their way into my heart and this story will stick in my mind for a long time. Rorax starts out as this unfeeling assassin, but slowly turns into a big old marshmallow and I was there for it. Ayres was the same way. A true enemies to lovers story. Found Family, a sapphic POV, lies, betrayal, a deadly competition. So many epic fantasy tropes!

Enjoyable new author-incredible narrator

Amazon had a sale so I wanted to try a new author while there was a discount and I’m not disappointed. The story felt a little slow at first but I felt like it finally got there. She obviously set it up for the next book but we got some resolution. This is an emotional journey of a young woman who was manipulated into committing atrocities that now haunt her and it feels genuine. I loved all the creatures and magic she incorporated and the world the author is developing has a lot of potential for some great stories. I felt like Jias side story was meh but that’s my only complaint. Definitely erotic romantic scenes with some consensual aggression. I would buy the next book. Amazing narrator took this book to the next level. Narrators can absolutely ruin a good book and on a rare occasion an incredible narrator can elevate a decent story to a great one like Kate Belsey

Great book

This book has a lot of really unique world building and string characters. Each character has a very vibrant personality. With the amount of books in this genre there are a lot of duds, and books that all follow the same basic outline. While this does this a tiny bit, as you need a reason for adventure, it is also really unique in its world building and interactions. The narration was really good too.

The only thing that I struggle with is there are characters introduced in the first few hours that are insuated to be important and then never come back or are heard from again. I know this will have more books, but they were people who seemed to be important to what was currently happening. So I was a little thrown off.