Thanks to the publisher for providing an audiobook ARC of Twin Daggers in exchange for an honest review.
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Hi! If you're new here I'm a massive nerd! Shakespeare & classic retellings are some of my favourite things and I honestly felt like the R&J comparison here was this book's low point. I kept waiting for this to turn into a retelling and it just... didn't happen? Twin Daggers is pretty much an R&J retelling in the same way almost every other star-crossed lovers story is a retelling. It has similar themes, but I would call this a loose reimagining, if anything. (Before someone yells at me, yes there's poison and daggers but I guarantee if this book hadn't been compared to R&J, you would have just went 'huh. Look at those daggers and poison!' not 'wow maybe this is inspired by R&J!)

Anyways, plot wise I loved this! Worlds that combine magic and sci-fi elements are some of my favorite and the whole 'clockwork heart' thing was a really interesting plot element. It is definitely incredibly predictable but not all fantasy/sci-fi needs to be ground-shattering. Some things just need to be fun and Twin Daggers definitely is. The character dynamics were familiar and fun to fall into and it was all in all a really fun cast to follow.

My main complaint with the writing would be the amount of times things are reexplained to us. This book could have been a lot shorter if it didn't keep showing us every single character playing catch up. Our protagonist would learn something, then we'd relearn it as she explained it to every other character she came across and it felt like the narrative was hitting you over the head with "look! Important!".

Rebecca Gibel did a wonderful job with the narration and really brought the story to life. My one nit-pick there was that I'm pretty sure she used 2 different pronunciations of 'magi'
interchangeably. I might have just been more sensitive to that than I normally would be though since the last audiobook I listened to was also about magi so my brain had locked into one pronunciation.

I requested this audiobook because I wanted to listen to it while reading the ebook version of this ARC. When I couldn't find the audiobook anywhere on Netgalley, I thought I would never get it so I started reading the ebook. Therefore, when I received this audio, I was surprised and a bit disappointed because I had already finished the story. I will copy the review I already shared here: 


After reading the first 20%, I almost stopped reading this book completely. I was not impressed and it was a bit of a chore to read. I was thrown into a world were two people were against each other, one in hiding, the other in power but we didn't really know what happened before and I had no idea of the world we were in other than some sort of rebellion was happening. It didn't really appeal to me. But then, I gave myself three hours to start reading again and finish the book or be done with it. I also had a BR planned for it so it helped and I managed to finish the book. I'm glad I did but that doesn't mean I'm giving it four or five stars. I didn't hate Twin Daggers but I didn't love it either.

In Twin Daggers, you'll follow twin sisters (but get only one point of view). They are Magi and even though they're young and sometimes pretty stupid, they have been given spy missions. One is a messenger, the other will infiltrate a mechanic shop since she's good with mechanics. The thing is, the twins can do magic on machines but no one except their families know about it. If the Magi were to discover it, they would consider them a threat. And the Technocrats, well they consider all Magi enemies.

I liked the idea behind the Heartless. It was interesting and had potential. However, the twists were very predictable and I wish the bits of worldbuilding wouldn't have been thrown in in the middle or the end of the book as by that point, I didn't really care anymore and it slowed the pace too much. I wanted to know those things at the beginning. I liked the romance and I liked Aissa and Aro for the most part but the rest of the characters? Meh.

(Thank you for letting me read and review an ARC via Edelweiss)