Where Shadows Lie cover art

Where Shadows Lie

The Last Gift, Book One

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Unlimited access to our all-you-can-listen catalogue of 15K+ audiobooks and podcasts
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Where Shadows Lie

By: Allegra Pescatore
Narrated by: Marian Hussey
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £21.99

Buy Now for £21.99

About this listen

The chosen one is dead. Magic is going haywire. Time is running out.

When the King of Lirin murders Elenor's brother during a failed coup attempt, she must choose between turning a blind eye to her people's suffering or joining the rebellion and helping bring down the tyrant king. There's only one problem - the king is her father.

Helped along the way by a grouchy old doctor, a boisterous group of nobles, and a well-meaning assassin, Elenor is forced to dance between duty and defiance as she tries to save her kingdom.

Meanwhile, from the rainy streets of Lirin to the scorching dunes of the Mondaer Desert, the ripples of her actions have inadvertently broken a chain of events five centuries in the making. Ancient forces move in the shadows, calling in debts and striking deals. A monster with a thousand faces fingers his knife, ready to kill, and a pair of fugitives run for their lives.

Where Shadows Lie is a non-stop, epic fantasy ride featuring an LGBTQ+ and disabled protagonist and filled with court intrigue, sizzling romance, adorable baby dragons, and the battle between oppression and freedom. Dive in and get swept away!

©2020 Allegra Pescatore (P)2025 Allegra Pescatore Fantasy Fiction Literature & Fiction Science Fiction & Fantasy Royalty
All stars
Most relevant
I'm 27 chapters into a 54 chapter book, and Elenor, the princess of the crown, daughter of the Caligula-style king, is still, STILL absolutely committed to the idea that anyone who wants her mass-murdering father dead must be awful. She is completely unable to see beyond the end of her own nose, and immune to critical thinking. She gets so, so many people killed. I'd argue she's one of the principle antagonists of the novel. And yet, the story treats her as if she's this lost, naïve child who simply needs to learn how awful her father is... *despite the fact that she has learned how awful Caligula Dad is multiple times, but she still acts with infinite privilege and arrogance anyway*.

I started skipping her chapters, but she started infecting other chapters as well, and I just can't carry on with this absolute monster as a main character. I'm sure the book is going to have her wake up to the nightmare she's inflicting on her citizens eventually, but after twenty seven chapters of her self-entitled martyr complex, I have no faith that the author would do anything interesting with it.

The other characters are fine. Nothing particularly special.

Has an antagonist acting like a protagonist

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.