With Fangs and Claws

I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes at first. *Another* noblewoman who secretly kicks ass? But *With Fangs and Claws* disarmed me—literally—by making the ‘secret warrior’ trope feel brutal and earned. The fight scenes aren’t just choreographed set pieces; they’re desperate, messy, and *consequential*. When our heroine takes a hit, you *hear* it in Cohen’s voice—the way her breath hitches, the wet sound of a split lip. That level of detail extends to the social warfare too. Hall writes dialogue like a fencing match, where every compliment is a feint and every silence a parry. Cohen’s delivery turns even throwaway lines into chess moves, her clipped tones making ‘How lovely to see you, *cousin*’ sound like a death threat. That said, the pacing stumbles in the middle. The political intrigue sections, while rich, occasionally bog down in exposition—like Hall got so excited about worldbuilding they forgot to let the characters *react* to it. And Cohen’s male voices, while serviceable, lack the nuance of her female performances; a few secondary characters blur together. But the last act? Flawless. The climax hinges on a choice that’s morally gray enough to spark debates, and Cohen’s performance in those final chapters is *devastating*. She doesn’t just narrate the fallout—she makes you *complicit* in it. By the end, I wasn’t just invested in the romance or the power struggles; I was furious at the system that forced these characters to choose between survival and their souls. That’s the mark of a great audiobook: it doesn’t just entertain. It *haunts*.