Synopsis
Four titans sleep beneath the earth.
Only one fae can keep them from waking.
Silbrey is an orphaned wood nymph, taken from her forest home and raised in the corrupt city of Penderyn. The fae child grows up unaware of who she is, what she can do, and the calling of her kind.
Under the control of a cruel guildmaster, Silbrey is trained as an assassin. As an adult, she escapes her violent past to start a new life and a family. But a tragic death brings her back to the familiar cobbled streets to seek revenge.
This dark path leads Silbrey to uncover an even darker secret: An ancient evil will wake the titans and break the world. Silbrey must travel with her daughter across a war-torn land to defeat that evil.
What begins as a fairy tale transforms into a multi-generational epic fantasy about love and loss—and a woman with a strange connection to nature.
Review
The Dryad’s Crown is a beautiful epic fantasy tale packed with whimsical charm.
Genesis
The Dryad’s Crown is a book I had no idea that I would read because honestly, I haven’t seen anything about it until…I received it on my doorstep. Let me tell you, David Hopkins unboxing experience is on point! A few months ago, I opened a random white box where I literally had no clue what was inside. Usually, I have some knowledge on what my book mail contains as I usually have some sort of conversation with the author beforehand. However, this was a box that had me intrigued as it was packaged like a Broken Binding subscription box. If you have seen any content related to opening a Broken Binding box, you will know exactly what I am talking about.
Inside the box, not only did I receive a copy of The Dryad’s Crown, I also got a very cool bookmark and a crown enamel pin that also looked very cool. I had no idea what it represented but…as you would guess, when I read the book, I found out. RAFO 😂
So based on the very exciting unboxing experience, the very pretty book cover, and Hopkins sending me an audiobook code, I was more than set to check out this book.
Preamble
The Dryad’s Crown is the first book in the Tales from Efre Ousel series. For this review, I wanted to call out that I listened to the audiobook version of this story narrated by Lindsey Dorcus. I’ll just cut to the chase here…Dorcus was an exceptional narrator and I deeply enjoyed her character work across the entire cast of people within the story, especially the main character.
Something else that I wanted to call out was that this book has incredible illustrations at the end of every chapter. These illustrations were beautiful and honestly I would have loved to see one of these represented on the front cover of this book. I do like the cover as it stands today with it giving off whimsical fantasy vibes but that’s about it. Also, a slight confession, I didn’t know what a “Dryad” was either so I was a little lost on what this book would really be about.
You might be reading this saying “you read fantasy but you don’t know what a Dryad is?” For that, I apologize 😂 but after a quick Google search, I found out. From the very reputable source of Wikipedia – “A dryad is a tree nymph or tree spirit in Greek mythology.”
Now, with an amazing narrator, beautiful illustrations, and knowing what a Dryad is, I was more than ready to check out this book. Below, you can see how it turned out.
Aftermath
Entering the Dryad’s Crown through the audiobook version, you are immediately greeted with a beautiful and whimsical song that really paints the tone to expect within this book.
Something else that I noticed right away was the length of the “chapters” in this book where each chapter is labeled as “Book 1”, “Book 2” and so on. Listening to the audiobook version on Spotify, you can see the expected time length of each chapter with Book 1 being over two hours long. To me, this is no big deal at all but I know this might hinder some people looking for a quick dopamine rush of “finishing” a chapter within a few minutes of listening. The only issue I had while listening to this book was not knowing when I had a break between scenes within one particular chapter/book.
Sometimes I found myself confused as to what just happened as the scene changes to something else making me double back a few minutes because I felt like I missed something. I feel that if I was reading the physical book, I would see the spacing between two scenes to find a good point to pause.
Now, that has absolutely nothing to do with the story, just something I wanted to point out during my listen.
In this story, there are nine books or nine chapters to read through. In my opinion, book 1/chapter 1 was the weakest point within this entire story. The reason mainly being that we fly through characters, character development and huge life changes while trying to become acquainted within the world in this universe. We go from child to adult faster than I can blink within this first chapter and it was a bit of a struggle for me.
From Chapter 2 / Book 2, I fell in love with this story. We get action, we get humor, we get character growth, we get world building and we have an overarching mystery that really hooked me. Getting further and further into the story, the main character Silbrey really grew on me. This is woman who has a mysterious past that we get to see unfold before her and our eyes.
Silbrey is an amazing character that we get to see at many points in her life. We see the low lows and the high highs for this character that spans many many years. We see her as an assassin, as a mother, as a leader, as a lover, and more that I won’t spoil here. Destiny has plans for Silbrey and she’s caught in the middle of it whether she likes it or not.
Book 6 / 7 were special highlights for me as they dealt with open sea travel and revealing huge bombs of information that only builds on the already dense world building Hopkins packs inside this book.
This is also a story that is packed to the brim with magical creatures that can really help or really cause headaches. One of my favorite enemies in this story was actually a Goblin creature that didn’t have too much screen time within the story but Hopkins’ character work really brought him to life. I was going back and forth thinking “Ok, this is a good guy. Ok, nevermind. Ok maybe actually…” This is just a singular moment where Hopkins uses dynamic change in the story that kept me on my feet in terms of what was going to happen next.
I can absolutely see this book becoming a comfort read to many as you just walk away with a warm tingly feeling in your chest while also being satisfied. BUT…I want more! 😂
Overall, this was a fantastic read and I am so thankful for David Hopkins for sending me a copy. Random but absolutely welcome.
I rate The Dryad’s Crown 9 out of 10 and would recommend it to any fantasy fan looking for a whimsical cozy epic tale.
“Did you know Bren Caius…”
To check out more of David Hopkins work and updates, check out this website here – https://thatdavidhopkins.com/
Also, I have a Patreon that is completely open for new members where I will place your name at the bottom of all future reviews and in all future videos. No pressure at all, I can’t thank you enough for simply reading this review and watching my videos. You ROCK!
Thank you to my Patrons ❤️
Exalted Members
Timothy Wolff
Ouster Members
Mel
Follow Me on other socials
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@BiblioTheory
Twitter/X – https://twitter.com/BiblioTheory
Goodreads – https://www.goodreads.com/bibliotheory
Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/BiblioTheory
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/bibliotheory
Leave a Reply