
Fever Dream (Emerald Lake, Book 1), by Elsie Silver | Free Audiobook
21 May 2026
Burn (Foolish Kingdoms, Book 3), by Natalia Jaster | Free Audiobook
23 May 2026Audiobook details
A princess ruined. A jester who refuses to let go.
Briar never planned to fall for the court jester. He was dangerous, unpredictable, and everything a princess of the Autumn Court was supposed to avoid. But the rules she swore to follow have already been broken, and now her fate is tied to a man whose secrets run as deep as his desire for her. What began as forbidden tension has become something neither of them can undo.
Ruin picks up where their story left off, plunging both Briar and Poet into a conflict larger than themselves. Someone is moving against the Crown, and the threat is closing in from directions they did not expect. The closer they get to the truth, the more Briar is forced to confront a choice she cannot escape: the throne she was born to inherit, or the man she can no longer imagine giving up.
Set against the four Courts of a medieval world where class divides cut as sharply as any blade, this second installment in the Dark Seasons series is a slow-burn turned full flame, with political stakes woven tightly through every stolen moment. Charlotte Claremont and Will Thorne each carry their character's voice with precision, keeping the tension between Briar and Poet alive across every chapter of this sixteen-hour listen.

I went into Ruin expecting more of what Trick delivered: a slow burn between two stubborn people who can't keep their hands off each other. That's there, but it's not the whole story. The plot takes center stage in a way I wasn't prepared for, and by the midpoint I had genuinely stopped thinking of this as a romance with a fantasy backdrop and started treating it as a fantasy novel that also happens to be scorching.
Briar and Poet are both carrying weight that would buckle most people. What Natalia Jaster does well here is let them be imperfect under that weight. They don't always communicate cleanly. Tensions between them boil over at the wrong moments. For a second book in a trilogy, that kind of friction feels earned rather than manufactured. Their dynamic doesn't reset to zero from where Trick left things; it evolves, messily, in ways that feel true to who they are.
The political thread running through the plot is where the book surprised me most. There's a conspiracy against the Crown that builds slowly and then accelerates, and the stakes stop feeling abstract quite quickly. A few scenes in the second half had me pausing the audiobook because I needed a moment to process what had just happened. That's not something I expected from this series.
One thing worth saying: the world Jaster built around social class and court structure gets more interesting here. The tension between the four Courts, and between what characters are permitted to want versus what they actually want, gives the romance a context that makes the emotional beats land differently than they would in a vacuum.
On the narration: Charlotte Claremont and Will Thorne split the dual perspectives and both carry their roles without overplaying them. Claremont gives Briar a restraint that suits her well, while Thorne finds the right register for Poet: confident on the surface, something more complicated underneath. Sixteen hours passes faster than it should.
Some links on this page are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.
Ruin (Foolish Kingdoms, Book 2) by Natalia Jaster picks up directly from the events of Trick, pulling Briar and Poet into a fight for the Crown that neither of them chose. The political intrigue sharpens considerably in this installment, pushing the story well past its romance roots without losing the tension between its two leads. At sixteen hours, the pacing holds.
The free trial, cancellable at any time, lets you start listening immediately. Charlotte Claremont and Will Thorne handle the dual narration across 16 hours, each staying in their character's register throughout. Claremont's restraint as Briar and Thorne's layered take on Poet make the dual-POV structure work in a way that a single narrator would have struggled to pull off.
The audiobook is yours to keep, even if you cancel the trial before it ends. The free trial also unlocks access to thousands of other titles, with no commitment required. Don't let the offer sit, start listening tonight.
More BookTok Audiobooks






US-based editor & staff writer focused on audiobooks. Honest reviews, curated “best of” lists, and practical guides with an accessibility lens.












