I was delighted to see this offering in Netgalley’s audio section, as I’d read the ebook and really enjoyed it – see my review. So I expected to be completely engrossed in the audiobook.
BLURB: Paris, 1889. The city is on the cusp of industry and power, and the Exposition Universelle has breathed new life into the streets and dredged up ancient secrets. Here, no one keeps tabs on dark truths better than treasure hunter and wealthy hotelier Séverin Montagnet-Alarie. When the elite, ever-powerful Order of Babel coerces him to help them on a mission, Séverin is offered a treasure that he never imagined: his true inheritance.
To hunt down the ancient artifact the Order seeks, Séverin calls upon a band of unlikely experts: an engineer with a debt to pay; a historian banished from his home; a dancer with a sinister past; and a brother in arms if not blood.
Together they will join Séverin as he explores the dark, glittering heart of Paris. What they find might change the course of history—but only if they can stay alive.
REVIEW: I knew exactly what I was getting with this one and expected to tuck right into it. But I hit an unexpected snag with this fantasy heist adventure – I found narrator P.J. Ochlan’s narration rather difficult to listen to. While his command of the various character voices is excellent, his delivery of the text tended to fall into a slightly sing-song cadence that I found very irritating. While there were times when it worked for me – for instance when I felt it matched the rhythm of the writing. But particularly during some of the descriptive passages, I felt Ochlan’s delivery diminished the lushness of Chokshi’s prose. This led me to limit the length of time I listened to the story, especially in the early stages when there is a significant amount of scene-setting and description. Fortunately as the book progressed, this issue became less of a problem due to the gathering pace of the story and the heightened tension as the stakes grew ever larger. Once again, I was struck by Chokshi’s deft characterisation as each one of the gang was well drawn, with both strengths and weaknesses that were highlighted throughout the story.
I would mention that this story definitely falls within the YA genre – the young protagonists are still struggling to discover who they are within the wider world. Emotions within the team are ramped up as they also are trying to work out how they feel about each other. Interestingly, listening to this story had me far less sympathetic to Séverin than when I read it. In fact, I wanted to shake him until his teeth rattled to snap him out of his self-pitying fugue, whereby he seemed to think it was fine to hurt others around because he was also in pain.
However, despite my issues with one of the narrators, I still became caught up in the twisting plot and enjoyed the vivid depiction of a fantastical Paris where magic and a decadent pursuit of pleasure collide to produce a bright world, full of colour and enchantment. Now I have once again been drawn into the story, I want to discover what happens next to this disparate group. Recommended for those who enjoy a richly depicted fantastical world and a magical heist adventure full of twists and turns. While I obtained an audiobook arc of The Gilded Wolves from the publishers via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
8/10
Brainfluff 
I love the idea of listening to a book you’ve already read, even if the narration didn’t quite work😁
Yes – I’ve done it before and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, which was why I signed up for this one. Ah well – you can’t win them all!
The story sounds like a promising one, but I believe it would work better in book form rather than audio, given the problems you mentioned… Still – intriguing! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Yes… I definitely preferred my reading experience to listening to this one!