Audiobook Review: Of Secrets and Slippers (Daughters of Eville #7)

Author: Chanda Hahn

Narrator: Jesse Vilinsky

Audiobook Length: 10 hours 50 minutes

Something evil this way comes.
7 Vengeful Sisters
7 Fairytale Kingdoms
7 Daughters of Eville

A haunting song
A deadly dance
An explosive finale

Allemar may be dead, but his cause festers in the dark. Strange beasts stalk the night as haunting music corrupts the fog. When morning comes, nothing but dust remains. Rumors are quick to spread, with many speculating that Allemar had a son … and the evil sorcerer’s heir wants blood.

When an attack hits close to home, I become embroiled in a plan with the Magical Menagerie to infiltrate the palace of Sion and flush out the apprentice. Instead, I find twelve princesses, terrified and ensnared in a spell of music and death. Caught in a charade for my life, I don’t know whom to trust, for even my greatest love may be my greatest enemy.

For I am Honor, one of the adoptive daughters of Lady Eville, and I’m an antimage—cursed with a gift that can kill. Forever forced to travel the ley lines to keep my friends safe, I must find the source of the rumors before the sinister song reaches its final note…

And death takes his final bow. 

Of Secrets and Slippers is the final novel in the Daughters of Eville series. Each story tells the journey of one of the seven adopted daughters of Lady Eville and is a retelling of a fairy tale. Each novel in this series tells the tale of one of the daughters and retells a classic fairy tale. This one retells the story of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. After Honor, the final daughter, was introduced in the previous novel, it was nice to finally learn her story! I enjoyed reading the other six stories about Rosalie in the kingdom of Baist (#1), Eden in the kingdom of Candor (#2), Merisol in the kingdom of Isla (#3), Aura in the kingdom of Rya (#4), Maeve in the kingdom of Florin (#5), and Rhea in the kingdom of Kiln (#6), so I could not wait to see how the seventh would turn out in the final kingdom of Sion.

As an anti-mage, Honor is especially dangerous to those with magic, and she must travel the ley lines to keep those around her safe. Due to her curse, Honor was sent to live among the Northern elves along the ley lines where she trained with Lorn. As Lorn was a great warrior, Honor was ostracized as his only pupil due to others being jealous, especially Rula, another elf.  However, Lorn did bring in Percy, a trained elf, to help Honor progress. Through the training and other flashbacks, the reader learns about the complex relationship that forms between the characters. While Honor develops feelings for Percy and he seems to reciprocate, they cannot be together, but they still become friends. In present day, readers see Percy pop up in Honor’s life, but there is a lot more going on with her story. Unlike the other six novels, the romance is less of a focus in this story. It is still present and well-done, but there is a lot larger focus on the plot and bringing all seven stories together for a finale.

At first, this story was difficult to follow as it opens with Honor hunting a werewolf before leading to the world of the northern elves. Through circumstances she finds herself in the Southern kingdom of Sion at the inn of The Silk Slipper. Here the connection to The Twelve Dancing Princesses made a lot more sense and the different pieces from the first part of the story began to make more sense little by little. There are tons of secrets of Honor’s past, Allemar and his minions (the main villain from the series), the two worlds of the elves, plus how all seven of the sisters’ stories all seem to fit together. Everything does end up making sense, but I do wish that there was a little more added to transition between each element. It seemed some pieces went by too fast, and others could have been a little faster.

Overall, this novel nicely tied together all seven stories. There is some history of each of the seven novels along with each of the daughters. As Honor does not use magic like her sisters, she has insecurities, but, for me, she voiced them yet did not make this her only character trait. Instead, she balanced this with her coming up with her own power, even without magic. There are a lot of twists and turns, and Honor was a great protagonist. Her romantic storyline with Percy may not have been the focus, but I did enjoy how their connection seemed natural. It is difficult to believe that this series is now over as each of the seven sisters all had their own story. There were some novels in the series that I enjoyed more than others, but I still loved the series as a whole. I cannot wait to see what Hahn writes next!

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