Everyone keeps telling me this series is a fun ride. The reviews are gushing. Cris Dukehart is apparently the perfect narrator for this world. So I queued up Witch's Cauldron on a rainy Tuesday evening while shelving returns at the library after hours — just me, Shirley Jackson's ghost (the building is from 1932, I'm allowed to believe what I want), and Leda Pierce's second trial by supernatural fire.
And look. I need to be honest with you. This isn't horror. I know it's tagged that way, and I know there's a premise involving a drink that literally kills people, and poisoned supernaturals, and an angel named Nero who radiates menace-slash-sex-appeal. But this understands horror the way a haunted house at a county fair understands horror — the set dressing is there, the stakes are gestured at, but the dread? The slow, suffocating wrongness that makes you check the locks twice? It's not here.
What IS here is an urban fantasy romp with some dark seasoning. And once I stopped expecting Shirley Jackson and started expecting, I don't know, Shadowhunters with a poisoning subplot, I had a decent enough time.
The Nectar Problem (Or: When Your Premise Is Darker Than Your Execution)
That opening hook — "I watched six of my fellow initiates die after sipping the Nectar of the gods" — is genuinely chilling on paper. It promises a world where divine power has a body count, where the cost of magic is visceral and immediate. And the book does follow through on the setup: Leda's back for more, the Legion sends her undercover to investigate witch-related poisonings in New York, and her survival hinges on gaining magic that could kill her.
But here's the thing. The writing treats these life-or-death stakes with the emotional weight of a pop quiz. Characters who should be traumatized crack wise. The academy-style dynamics — who's popular, who's powerful, who's flirting with whom — keep pulling focus from the genuinely interesting supernatural conspiracy. It's like watching someone set up dominoes for a gorgeous chain reaction and then just... knock a few over by hand. The architecture of something great is visible. The follow-through isn't quite there. Two Twisted Crowns has that same structural promise — dark premise, real stakes gestured at — and I came away with the same bittersweet feeling that the bones were better than the house.
At six hours and twenty minutes, it doesn't overstay its welcome, which honestly works in its favor. Ella Summers knows how to move. Scenes don't linger. The pacing clips along. But speed can be a crutch when what you really need is a moment to sit in the horror of what just happened.
Cris Dukehart Carries the Weight
Here's where I'll give credit without hesitation: Cris Dukehart commits. That's rare, and it matters more than people think.
She maintains energy across the full runtime in a way that keeps the lighter tone from feeling flat. Her emotional delivery matches what the text is going for — even when I wished the text was going for something darker. There's a consistency to her work across Summers' series that tells me she gets this world, understands the rhythm of it. Listeners who've followed the Legion of Angels from book one will find that same reliable voice here.
I don't have enough data on her character differentiation to tell you whether Nero sounds distinct from every side character, or whether the witches have their own vocal identity. What I can tell you is that the narration never felt like the weak link. If anything, Dukehart is doing slightly more work than the prose asks of her, lending gravity to moments that the writing skims past. She's the narrator who makes you forget the writing is sometimes stumbling because her delivery sells the scene anyway.
(My podcast listeners would probably roast me for this comparison, but — she's doing for this series what a good horror host does for a mediocre film. Elevating the material through sheer commitment.)
Who This Is Actually For (And Who Should Keep Walking)
If you're here for genuine horror — psychological dread, atmospheric unease, the kind of fear that follows you after you press stop — skip this. You'll be frustrated. The horror tag is misleading.
If you want a fast-paced urban fantasy with a dark edge, angels with morally ambiguous agendas, and a protagonist who's scrappy enough to root for even when the writing gets a little YA-ish around the edges? This'll scratch that itch, especially on a commute or during a workout where you want something propulsive that doesn't require your full analytical brain.
Series completionists and Dukehart fans already know they're listening. You don't need my permission.
Closing the Book, Dimming the Lights
I finished this while locking up the library, standing alone in the stacks with my earbuds in. And honestly? The creepiest part of my evening was the building's heating system kicking on behind me, not anything in the audiobook. Shirley (my cat, not Jackson) was unimpressed when I got home. I wasn't terrified.
But I wasn't bored either. And sometimes that's enough — just not enough for a credit.
