Audiobook Review: Reverence by Raena Rood
Reverence
Series: Reverence #1
Author: Raena Rood
Narrator: Missy Brooks
Audio Published: April 4, 2023
Audiobook: 8 hours 52 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: September 26-28, 2025
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Book Description:
REVERE THE VOLUNTEER
Inside the walls of Vita Nova, safety comes at a terrible price.
The elderly and chronically ill face mandatory euthanasia, while the “Volunteer Program” offers citizens a week of luxury and adoration—before their execution.
Kira Liebert works with the Volunteers, granting their every wish. Despite losing her sick mother to the Compulsory Program, she believes in the system that keeps their overcrowded city alive.
Until Will Foster walks into her office.
Young, handsome, and volunteering to die for the good of the city, Will has just one request for his Final Week: He wants to spend it with Kira.
Unable to refuse a Volunteer’s last wish, she’s swept into an unexpected journey that takes her beyond the barricade—into the dangerous Unregulated Zone where lawless marauders roam among crumbling buildings and overgrown highways.
What Kira discovers will shatter everything she believes about Vita Nova, forcing her to confront the darkness within the system she once trusted.
Jessica’s Review:
Revere the Volunteer
I can’t recall how I came across Raena Rood’s Reverence series, but the book description gave me similarities of Matched by Allie Condie and other YA Dystopian novels from the 2010s. I enjoyed those books then, so I listened to Reverence and enjoyed it! Reverence is the first in a trilogy and I plan on reading them all! Or in my case listen to them once they are available.
Reverence has an interesting premise that can also be controversial: There was a worldwide plague and what was formerly known as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is now known a Vita Nova. Vita Nova closed itself off to the outside world. Now, at age 60 everyone is ‘sacrificed’ ‘For the Good of All’. Those who are sick become ‘Compulsories’ and will be euthanized ‘for the good of all’. “For the Good of All” is due to the diminished resources and fear of the Lawless (IE Outsiders). I personally have issues with this idea of forced euthanasia on the older and sickly. There is also a “Volunteer Program”: Any resident of Vita Nova can volunteer to be euthanized in exchange for one last week of luxury and whatever they want. And the ‘any resident’ part is shown in this novel, which I was not expecting at all!
Now meet Kira, our FMC, who the novel follows. Two years after losing her mother to city policies, Kira now works with Volunteers to help them with their last week and help get them what they desire. Subsequently she beings to work with one Volunteer: Will. And his only wish is to spend his last week with Kira. But nothing naughty: Remember we have Christian themes throughout this novel!
Being this is a Dystopian novel, of course things are not as they seem. There are discoveries and realizations Kira makes and there is so much more that is to come in the next two novels of the series.
Though Reverence is YA, it is more ‘grown up’ than Matched dealing with adult themes (death, euthanasia, grief, manipulation of society and more), but it also stays clean. I don’t recall any foul language, ‘extreme’ violent content, or sexual content. The Christian themes that come to play in the novel are not ‘in your face’. I am speculating that the Christian themes will come more to the forefront as the series progresses. I don’t have a problem with this at all.
The narrator for Reverence is Missy Brooks and I enjoyed her narration. She really portrayed Kira well!
I look forward to the next in the series, Rebellion. The series has been completely released and is available in e-book and in physical form. I asked the author about the audiobooks since the first is available and she is optimistic for a late November/early December release.
Until I can continue the series, will you choose to ‘Revere the Volunteer’?
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Book Review: Wed to the Lich by Layla Fae
Wed to the Lich
Series: Arranged Monster Mates #8
Author: Layla Fae
Published: September 13, 2023
Paperback: 208 pages
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: January 19- February 5, 2025
Jessica’s Rating: 3 stars
Book Description:
Liches are almost gone, only a handful of us left. I must marry to keep my race from extinction, yet how? No living female will ever stoop so low as to marry a lich. People fear us. They say we are the harbingers of death, bad luck, rot and decomposition.
In one last bid to carry out my duty, I request a wife through the Temple. She turns out to be a neglected, sickly thing with trembling hands and downcast eyes, seeking an arranged marriage out of despair.
And she’s perfect. Her blushes burn hot, her voice rings with feeling, and her kisses taste like summer. She is life personified, all warmth, light, and sweetness, and I crave her like darkness craves the sun.
But will she sacrifice her warm, beating heart to a creature of death like me?
The Temple, a matchmaking service for monsters, shifters, and aliens, is open for service.
Arranged Monster Mates is a series of novellas written by your favorite paranormal and sci-fi romance Eden Ember, Layla Fae, and Cara Wylde.
Each of these steamy stories has it a possessive male, a heroine ready to sacrifice herself to the beast, plenty of spice, and a happily ever after to curl your toes!
Jessica’s Review:
Some friends and I all decided to swap books and annotate them in 2024 with the intention that everyone gets their books back by Christmas, and these annotated books would be our gifts to each other. Sadly, none of us got our books back by Christmas, but we really tried! Wed to the Lich was one friend’s choice and I would have never picked it up otherwise! I most likely would have not ever heard of it. But I can proudly say that I did read it! I am working on going outside of my usually genres, and we will see what I enjoy versus what I don’t enjoy as much.
Wed to the Lich is an arranged marriage book between and human (May) and an undead monster (Virgil). My thought when I picked up the book is “WHAT is a Lich?” We get both Virgil and May’s point of views in this novel. Both of them are damaged individuals, Virgil is lonely as he is one of the last Lich’s and May suffers severely from Anorexia. In fact they could both be dying from their issues.
At times Virgil was sweet yet possessive and at times kind of creepy. At one point he was watching May sleep and my annotation I wrote mentioned something to do with him being stalkerish like Edward Cullen!
Wed to the Lich is the eighth book in the arranged monster mates series, and I did not read the others. I don’t think you really need to read them unless you want to. All of the books deal with a monster who is searching for a mate who is human.
The book is smutty, and not for me. At times it would be sweet, then Virgil went smutty talking/thinking. It just doesn’t work for me. I’m fine with ‘fade to black’/ closed door romances. Wed to the Lich isn’t that.
There are some serious issues as May is dealing with Anorexia due to the way her former guardian treated her, who was just terrible! You really hate that woman. There is verbal abuse from the guardian. And be forewarned, there is an animal death. It is May seeing how Virgil eats, but it won’t be pleasant to some.
I did enjoy the epilogue, as it ended the story. This is a short novel, just over 200 pages. If you are into smutty monster romances then this series will be for you. I read it and went outside of my box of my usual thrillers/ YA, I did it for my friend! I was the last to read her choice, so I was able to send her book back to her.
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
A Re-Read of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
Author: V.E. Schwab
Narrator: Julia Whelan
Published: October 6, 2020
Audiobook: 17 hours 10 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened: January 27- February 8, 2025
Jessica’s Rating: 5 stars
Book Description:
A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget.
France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.
But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.
Jessica’s Review:
It’s been four years since I read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab and I loved it just as much this second time! The was a a re-read for the book club I am in (It was my selection that was picked! I am so glad they all got to meet Addie, and our meeting is Saturday!)
I can’t really say much more than what I did before so here is the link to my review. The review was actually a double review with Kim and we both loved it. I listened to the audiobook again, which is narrated by Julia Whelan, who is one of my favorite narrators! Needless to say, I loved her narration! There were things that I forgot that happened, and I enjoyed the novel just as much this second time around. It is one of my favorite novels, it just gives you so many feelings!
If you haven’t read it, you must! And trust me, you won’t forget Addie!
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK