Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: A New Empire
SERIES: Fog City #3
AUTHOR: Layla Reyne
NARRATOR: Tristan James
PUBLISHER: Tantor Audio
LENGTH: 5 hours, 42 minutes
RELEASE DATE: February 11, 2020
BLURB:
Legacies were made to be rewritten.
Assassin Hawes Madigan wants to do right – by his family, his organization, his city, and the man he’s falling for, ATF agent Christopher Perri. But Hawes’s rules are being challenged by someone willing to kill for the old ways. To save his soul and his empire, Hawes must make an impossible decision: fight from the outside or bend the knee to win back his throne from within.
Chris is used to being the inside man, the one undercover. Now, he’s on the outside marshaling forces in support of the man and the ring of assassins he was supposed to take down. His mission shifted when he found something that’s been missing for 10 long years – a home, with Hawes.
As Hawes and Chris make a dangerous play for control, the lines between allies and traitors blur. Trusting the wrong person could destroy the legacy Hawes envisions for the Madigans. But not trusting anyone, or each other, could mean lights out on their love and lives forever.
REVIEW:
Here we are (again). Another ending, another goodbye. On the one hand I hate goodbyes, hate leaving interesting stories and characters. On the other, I also really appreciate series that does end – there are too many never-ending series out there that should have ended long ago. Where the magic is gone, but that you still read in the hops for something to have changed. And every time you are left with an empty and disappointed feeling. Layla Reyne has a clear vision for her stories, her characters. She tells their stories beautifully, and she sticks to a plan, she doesn’t draw things out for the sake of it. So while I hate goodbyes, I love a well-crafted story even more – and Reyne brings us that once more with the Fog City series.
A New Empire starts off the moment after King Slayer ended, and if you read or listened to it, you know it ended with a huge cliff-hanger – and that waiting for this book to find out what happened next was tough. Really tough. Not everyone in the Madigan organisation is happy with the new ways and they are trying to overthrow Hawes and take over control. There are many players in this coup, and knowing who to trust is anything but easy. There are many hidden agendas, plotting and planning to tie everything together and find all the answers – because knowledge is power and our people still have things to learn.
Hawes and Chris have come a long way since we first met them. Their journey has been a bumpy one with many layers of secrets and lies. But it was all worth it. I can’t imagine they’ll have an easy go of it going forward, seeing what they do for a living, but I do know that they will stand together in all things to come.
This book was expertly performed by Tristan James, who made you feel the agony when Chris went down. The uncertainty of trusting the wrong person in the wrong moment, the heart pounding in the showdowns and negotiations. He made you feel it all – and with a smile on your face. Add in his wonderful voice and it’s definitely something worth listening to.
A New Empire was a great conclusion of this series and I’ve enjoyed listening to these books. I think there’s a spin-off in the works for some of the side characters and I can’t wait to listen to their story.
RATING: 
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