Emile and his flower mage, Baz

I have been looking forward to this book ever since I found out the KING, of all people, was getting his own book. His own romance! His OWN HEA. KING EMILE DE GUILLORY.

From what we know of the king in the first book, is that King Emile went a bit mad after the death of his beloved wife, and is no stranger to putting anyone to death if they wrongly cross his path. This is our first impression of Emile, where he orders Sabre de Valois, his traitorous mother, and his younger teenage sister to hang at the gallows. He spared Sabre’s life, but only just.

Our impression of Emile softens somewhat throughout the series, like when he allows Devon to live, or when we see through his son, Adrien, that Emile does care for him. Even the Emile who dotes on Laurant’s sister, Rose, is quite different than the man we thought we knew in book 1. But it is with this book that the perception of Emile is shifted the most.

And namely because he starts the book poisoned and dying in the royal garden on the palace grounds after Adrien and Isiodore’s wedding.

Content notes include attempted murder, death, mentions of blood magic, and violence.

The books in this series definitely should be read in order. We first meet Baz in the previous books, and he is Hektor’s older brother. Baz was the first son of the Archmage and when it was deemed that the flower demon Baz summoned as a child was too weak, Baz was returned to the brothels. He has spent his teenage and adult years working at the brothels, but he never fails to look after his younger brother and wishes to keep him safe. Always.

Now away from Mislia and the Archmage, and Hektor being well looked after by his new found family, it seems that Baz is adrift. But then one night he finds a man dying in the royal palace gardens. Baz, MY LOVE, has a good heart, and not knowing the man is the gardens is the king and someone who once wanted all Mislians dead, Baz takes the man into his care and nurses him back to health.

There are not enough words to describe how precious Baz is and how much I love him??!! If there is one person to make the king open up his heart for love again, I definitely understand why it had to be Baz.

And look, I had my misgivings about the king throughout the series but I really warmed up to him! Emile grew on me. I wonder how it is his mother never called him to task though when he kinda…went and started ruling with a heavy hand in the kingdom. But who am I to judge the woman and her poet. The royal family dynamic is weird and everyone is kept at a distance, I suppose. Although, I would’ve loved to see this horrid poet in the books instead of just being talked about by Emile and Adrien. Who is this wretched, rhyming man??

But in any case, I ADORE Emile and Baz in this book. I love their dynamic and, I don’t know. Their relationship warms my heart.

It’s interesting to see how the Mislian dynamic with a demon works here. We see evidence of how there isn’t just one way when it comes to romantic relationships involving a demon, Mislian or not. We see in book 2 with Devon, Sebastien, and the very wise Sariel, Sariel is an active participant in their relationship. Then there’s obviously the young and budding one with Rose, Hektor, and his fox demon Flick that must be…interesting whenever something romantic happens?? And then there’s Summer and Tanis from book 3 that is another example who are very much in love with each other.

How Emile and Baz engage with their romantic relationship while Baz’s demon is present in Baz’s mind is different than the other demon relationships we’ve seen. It’s all explained at the end, but it’s once again something new and I love that we can see how these relationships work so differently throughout the books with the different characters.

I loved seeing all the characters again and I LOVED how this book ends with everything coming full circle, back around to a moment that can only be worked out between Sabre and the King. I wept. I WAS DOING SO WELL. How dare the authors make me emotional right at the end!! But it was a wonderful, and fitting moment to end the series, and I can’t wait to read more books from this world.

One interesting thing about this book is how many assassination attempts there are on Emile’s life. The assassin is, without a doubt, the most persistent person I’ve ever read. I think how this gets resolved is quite fitting and I like it. At first I was hesitant on the assassin getting his own POV chapters throughout the book, but they’re honestly not very long at all, and I think it helps round out his story.

Now, I have read this book previous by text and this audiobook is a re-read for me. I quite enjoy Kris Antham as the narrator for the series and I'm glad to hear him returning for more books by Iris Foxglove! He does the ending here very well and there's a lot of emotion in his performance as these characters. I teared up at the end all the same with Sabre and the King. I loved the accent chosen for Baz (and the other Mislians in this series). I will say the narrator talks VERY fast, so this is one of those audiobooks where I have to slow it down (so I'm not listening at my usual 2.5x speed). But once you get used to the accent, I think we can all agree Baz is very swoon-worthy, and I can totally see why King Emile would fall for him.

There are some parts I think that don't translate as well to audio that maybe isn't as noticeable when you're reading the book in text? Like there's a lot of pauses or gasping in the text when characters are speaking and when it's done a LOT in the audiobook, it kind of takes away from the story. It just doesn't quite translate over to audio. There's moments of weird pronunciations (like the word feral as "fee-ral") but it luckily doesn't happen too often. There's one moment where it sounds like the audiobook skips? Like a long forgotten cassette tape? It's the scene where Emile walks Cosette across the street and I don't think it's just my copy of the audiobook, but who knows. I've had issues with Audible before.

There is a sneak peak at the end of the book and in this audiobook as well that gives you a glance at Marius Chastain's book. Ranger's speaking voice is not what I expected at all, so it'll be interesting to see if that carries through to the full audiobook or not. It's just not what I imagined while reading the text for that book. Anyways, I love how the authors can convince me to entirely change my mind about characters and give them a much deserved happy ending, and I really enjoyed how Marius's story turned out so it'll be nice to listen to it in audio when the time comes!

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Loved It!

I loved this story I really liked the narrator he brings the story to life

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stunning.

I really love this series, the authors craft a great story and Kris Antham has done a superb job narrating. He has accents and different voices for different characters . Do not miss this one!

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A story about grief and healing

Once again, you must listen to the previous stories before trying this one out. There are too many established characters and plot lines to come into this and I think it would get confusing if you tried. This series is amazing and Kris Antham does an incredible job of keeping the main characters unique plus all the keeping track of all the accents. I loved this one as well as it focuses on King Emile and Baz who he takes as his Mislian mage. The performance that these two like to play for the court are something else and I love how Baz's "punishments" are nice things. If the BDSM theme brings you into this series, it's still here but I think it's much more subtle than in previous stories. The focus really is on the healing that I think both Emile and Baz work through and the growth of their feelings/relationship. It's definitely not one to miss! Plus Hector and Flick are always fun cameos. This series is one of my all time favorites and I'm super happy to see that The Last Flight of Marius Chastain has also has an audio version!

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