My issue is mainly with the audio version of this book. The wavering voices of the female characters and the shrieking voice of the witch made me set the playback to twice and sometimes thrice the normal speed. As the sounds blur by, my brain can only process the words and mercifully ignore the performance.

I don’t blame the reader. Not at all. She reads the story fell enough, but I wager it is the direction she was given that resulted in such a painful auditory experience. Characters that are strong in narrative sounds like waifs while the protagonists sound like whatever the extreme and painful opposite of ASMR is.

As for the story, it felt like an Imperial Guard story with drama in it. It is the opposite of Gaunt’s Ghosts where it is an outstanding military drama set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe with an Astra Militarum setting.

I would not call Honorbound “A Severina Raine Novel” as it is labelled on the cover. Those around her, especially the regime she is attached with are a far more interesting lot. Some are outstanding characters too.

Another reason why I would recommend reading this novel instead of listening to it is its structure.

The narrative is not linear. It loops back in time, like flashbacks. On the page, the separation is clearly seen. In an audiobook, the temporal and sometimes spatial shifts caught me by surprise many times.

In the end, I still have hope that maybe the story will improve in future books and as the characters develop even more.