Four Ruined Realms

The Broken Blades, Book 2

By: Mai Corland

Narrated by: Jaine Ye, Sophie Oda, Greg Chun, Zion Jang, Roger Yeh, Donald Chang

THE KING OF YUSAN MAY BE THE GREATEST LIAR OF THEM ALL.
His sister’s ring is in his sights, and he will do anything to get what he wants. Even manipulating the five blades to steal it …
Bonded by deceit, the blades must rely on their skills to pull off King Joon’s pursuit or risk his legendary wrath.
A foreign rule of law stands between them and Quilimar, the Queen of Khitan.
Now they have one month to steal the powerful Golden Ring of the Dragon Lord. But that impossible task might be easier than trusting one another, even though their lives, their families, and the realms depend on it.
They can all agree on one thing: the king can’t win. But can they beat him at his own game?
Because for the blades, this time it’s not just personal, it’s revenge. Lies may have torn them apart, but now vengeance will bring them together.
Narrated by Jaine Ye, Greg Chun, Sophie Oda, Donald Chang, Roger Yeh, and Zion Jang

©2025 Meredith Ireland (P)2025 Recorded Books

A wild ride in dark fantasy.

The thrills and subterfuge persist in book two. We've grown to love them all, but can we keep them? Broken trust, death everywhere, and plots thicken. A solid continuing of an already enjoyable story.

4.5 ⭐️

This was such a great sequel for Five Broken Blades! The story picked up right after FBB and we dove into action pretty quickly. I absolutely love the writing style for this series of bouncing between the six POVs constantly - there’s never time to get bored of anyone, we get different perspectives of the action and the fallout afterwards, and not knowing whose head you’re going to jump into next makes you want to keep going. My favorite character from FBB reigns in FRR - my girl Sora has been through some shit, but she’s still strong and loving and protective, and I never want anything bad to happen to her. We did get a number of new characters in this book, but it wasn’t overwhelming because the plot always kept moving. There was fun new world building and lore and politics and magic that I can’t wait to see play out in book 3 to close the trilogy.

This is still one of my favorites to listen to on audio because of the full cast for all the POVs. The narrators are all great.

Thanks to Entangled Publishing and NetGalley for the ebook ARC! I purchased the audiobook myself, so I could go back and forth between the two while enjoying the stellar narration. I also participated in the Entangled Insiders Readalong discussion. This is my honest review.

Excellent performances by multiple voice actors

Performances top notch. Was slower than the first book but the last two hours were awesome with multiple surprises. Looking forward to book three

Great plot driven story!

I really like the differing POVs the author gives us. It’s not different perspectives of the same events, just different perspectives throughout the story. The characters are so rich and real. And the plot thickens as the storyline goes on.

Slow burn. Various POVs. Story/ plot driven.
At the end of book 1, the captured group was given a task. They divide and conquer to accomplish it. But truths are discovered along the way.

The dragon lord relics

Pretty good book I enjoyed it though all the lies an twist it was a good overall story with light chapters

Better than the first one!

Absolutely loved this book! This is how you do a sequel! The way the story kept moving and the characters developed was amazing. From beginning to end, this was a total hit!

Wow, what a wild ride!

This series is spectacular! Mai continues to take it in directions I don’t expect. The story is filled with twisty plot points that are incredibly detailed in just the right way to build a rich world with compelling details while maintaining a fast pace that keeps me enthralled. I love everything about the story and can’t wait to read the next one. My only gripe is the quality of the audio, there are places where the sound fluctuates and glitches so it’s sometimes hard to hear. It’s also a multicast that isn’t performed in a duet style so the voices constantly change and the way of each narrator portrays each character is different, so it’s occasionally confusing. However, the story clearly labels each character so it helps somewhat. Basically, Mai Corland is a genius but I hope the next audiobook is tweaked a bit.

Great sequel but that cliff hanger!

I really didn’t see that end coming but it made the story that much more addictive and I’m eager to see how things play out from here.

I love this series so far!!

I loved this series so far and the maturation is awesome ! There is one chapter in Aris POV that is a little off saying her name? Other than that , amazing !

I’m so invested

Loved the first book and couldn’t wait to start the second and I was not disappointed! I love the characters and twists and turns. The third book can’t come soon enough!