Thank you @macmillan.audio for the gifted ALC of 𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝘼𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝘾𝙧𝙤𝙬𝙨!

This novella dives headfirst into an imaginative world based in Slavic folklore and Chicago’s rich cultural heritage.

Dymitr, a monster hunter who has sold his soul, must find the legendary witch Baba Jaga. To reach her, he strikes a deal with a fear-eating zmora named Ala who is cursed and will die if she cannot find a cure. These unlikely companions must fight against time in order to fulfill their quest in Chicago’s underworld.

Overall, I enjoyed listening to 𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝘼𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝘾𝙧𝙤𝙬𝙨. Hooray for full cast narration!! The narrators brought the characters to life with great pacing and distinctive voices. I typically listen at a higher speed and was able to follow along easily. I loved the exploration of themes around redemption, sacrifice, and regret. Given its short length, there was a bit of a “drinking from a firehose” feeling as the lore and world were introduced. With that said, it felt fully immersive with rich descriptions.

As a former Chicago resident, I love how Roth incorporates the city into her stories by leaning into its history and unique quirks.

I recommend this audiobook for readers looking for a quick, atmospheric modern fairytale and fans of Olivie Blake’s 𝙈𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁:
✨ Slavic folklore
✨ Urban fantasy
✨ Rich imagery
✨ Unlikely allies
✨ Epic quest
✨ Novella (4.5hrs audio)

Dymitr must join forces with a member of his enemy, Ala, in order to seek out the great witch Baba Jaga. Ala agrees to join the search in hope of breaking her family's curse.

When Among Crows is an urban fantasy set in Chicago. While the MCs and storyline are unique, there is heavy Slavic folklore influence. This is novella so everything is quite fast paced. There’s no real introduction or backstory before the characters are just thrown into the fray. Readers are given a little bit of background along the way but much is left up to speculation.

As the story is told from three points of view, there are three separate narrators. I think I would have benefited in reading this as a physical book as opposed to listening to the audio. There seemed to be some struggle in keeping the characters and their voices separate. I find this to be a common issue where all or several of the characters have similar accents. It made it very difficult to differentiate which of the characters was speaking.

This is actually the first book that I have read by Veronica Roth so I don’t know how it compares to her other work. While this book wasn’t for me, I do plan on checking out some of her backlist.

I voluntarily listened to and reviewed an advanced copy of this audiobook. All thoughts and opinions are my own.I’m

3 ⭐️

The writing in ‘When Among Crows’ was great, but the story just wasn’t for me. I would still recommend this book though!
I liked that there were multiple narrators, but the accents were a little much personally.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor for allowing me to read this book

For fans of:
- Masters of Death
- An Education in Malice

In Chicago's underworld, a peculiar human, a cursed zmora, and a not-vampire team up as an unlikely crew after a harrowing series of events. I can't say much without giving away spoilers, but in their quest to find an ancient witch, they find that they may be much more similar than they thought and there may be more secrets between them than they may have realized.

This book includes:
- multiple POVs
- beautiful prose
- a hidden world of supernatural creatures in a modern Chicago
- generational curses both psychological and literal
- regret, guilt, penance
- LGBT protagonists
- emotional rebirth

I was drawn to this audiobook because of the stunning cover art and eye-catching title. Seriously so gorgeous. The contents of the story surpassed any expectation I could have had. The narrative style is not the typical style that is popular in more modern fantasy bestsellers, and this allows the prose to shine. Each of the three main characters are dynamic despite the story being so short, and each of them had me feeling attached and craving more of their story by the time I reached the end. My heartstrings were tugged at for sure. I hope we receive more of this world in the future from Veronica Roth.

Speaking of Veronica Roth, I was shocked when I realized that this book has the same author as Divergent. I loved Divergent as a young teen and followed the series closely, but this is such a departure from the sci-fi dystopian that I did not make the connection that it was the same author until I was logging the book into my Goodreads. Superb job well done! I look forward to reading more of her more mature work.

I received this audiobook as an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and Veronica Roth for the opportunity to review this book. This review is also available on my GoodReads - check out my profile https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/62314863

I don't know if it was me or what, but this book did not do it for me. I couldn't pay attention, or keep attention. I think this one may be done better as a physical book for me personally.
I feel like we didn't really get to know the characters well and the plot didn't start off strong enough to pull me in.
The audiobook did have 3 narrators which I loved and they all had wonderful voices, though some of the attempted accents brought me out of the story a little.

Huge shoutout to Macmillan Audio for the audiobook arc!!

This short novella had a lot of great ideas and the Slavic folklore was new to me but extremely interesting! We got a narrator for each main character too, which I always love!!

This is my first time reading anything from Roth (yes, that means I never read Divergent 🫥), and I really enjoyed her writing style, especially when it came to the various creatures in this book. I hate to say this about a novella, as it’s the most common complaint with them, but gosh I wish this was a full novel.

The core of the story and the characters were so strong, but suffered from a very quickly paced book. I think there was so much depth left untouched in this, from the characters and their relationships and motivations, to the world itself and all the influences that I wanted to learn more about.

So while I did find myself wanting this to be longer, I still did enjoy what I read! And I’d like to read more from Roth in the future!

When Among Crows
By: Veronica Roth
I was able to read this as an arc through NetGalley and Macmillan Audio. I really enjoyed this novella, the writing was excellent and I really loved the characters. This is an urban fantasy I would say with Slavic characters and history.
This novella has to do with the characters going on a journey to save a person that is cursed. I would definitely recommend this book, I wish it was a novel and not a novella. I really wanted more, but overall it was a really good one. I would rate this novella a 4.5 only because I wished it was longer.

If a book has "crow" in the title, I read it. It's that simple.

Synopsis: Dymitr—a knight that split his soul and used his spine to make his sword—joins together with Ala—a witch with a curse that will soon take her life—on a quest to track down the legendary witch Baba Jaga. Dymitr, hiding who he really is, wants a chance to meet this epic witch and bribes Ala to help him with a flower, that in the hands of Baba, might heal her.

But they only have one day to do it.

Plot: To start this off, I think I read this at the wrong time. I just finished an INCREDIBLE novella, so going into this was a little bit of a letdown. Especially because I didn't realize it was a novella, until I was almost done. For a book that is this short, it was a surprisingly slow moving plot, and did't have a lot going for it plot-wise either. I think this tried to do way too much background—building the world, the magic, the creatures, etc.—and didn't spend enough time fully fleshing out the actual plot of the book. It was very one dimensional and lacked the intrigue to keep me wanting to pick this up. The synopsis makes this book sound so good, but the interesting pieces of that summary, are not focused on enough in the book for me. I just wanted more, and think this could have done better as a longer novel.

Characters: The shortness of the book really showed when it came to the characters too. There simply was not enough time to get to know them. A book like this needs to play somewhat into mystery and learning the characters slowly, but when you have less than 200 pages to do it, it can be difficult. Because of that, I only felt like I even started to know or care about them a little bit in the last 30 pages, and by that point it was too late.

Maybe listening to this on audio just didn't do it justice...the accents weren't great so.

2/5 stars.

Not sure if I will be picking up Veronica Roth anymore.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

I'm not that big of a fan of urban fantasy, but I really enjoyed this one. The writing, lore, and characters were great. All three of the narrators were wonderful. My only complaint is that I wish this were flushed out a bit more to be a full length story! Some of the literary devices used to move the story along were cliche, and had this been a full-length book, maybe could have been avoided.

This was stunning. It had very lush world-building, lovable characters, and, for a novella, a substantial amount of depth to the plot. I absolutely loved the Slavic lore in an urban setting. I had such a great time listening to this. I honestly wish it had been longer. I loved the narrators. I thought they worked well together and did a fantastic job. Their cadence and accents were excellent. I really like how each character has a different narrator, giving each character a very distinct sound.

4.25/5 rounded down. If you want to dip your toes into urban fantasy, maybe something a little darker but you're not sure you can handle too much gore and darkness, please pick this book up! Release date is 5/14/24.

This was such a gripping story full of polish folklore, found family, a lowkey achillean romance, and themes of redemption, forgiveness, and sacrifice. I just wish this was longer! Don't get me wrong, Veronica Roth does an excellent job telling a complete and satisfying story in such a small page count, but I really enjoyed my time in this world and am bummed that there wasn't more backstory to Dymitr, Ala, and Niko or that the Polish creatures weren't talked about more. I had to stop listening to look up the different creatures so that I could picture them or differentiate them from each other. Here are few for your reference prior to diving in:

Baba Jaga - a witch/hag/ogress known for trapping and killing people (or children)
Strzyga – a (usually female) demon like a vampire with owl features
Zmora – shape-shifting nightmare demons that suffocate you when you're sleeping
Leshy – forest spirit

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the advanced listeners copy in exchange for my honest review

This book moved a little slow and had a lot of back story for how short it was, but the story was interesting and I will definitely read the best one. I really enjoyed the mix of witchy/monster vibes with the modern setting.

This was a great little novella/audiobook covering a range of Slavic/Russian-folktale-inspired storylines, which I always love. It was also like a re-imagining of the old vampire vs. vampire hunters, but with all manner of beings, and I always love Baba Yaga being thrown into the mix. The storyline was powerful, moving, unnerving, and uplifting. I got tired of Veronica Roth's post-apocalyptic and world-ending scenarios in her books a long time ago, and haven't read much from her in quite some time. I hope she keeps adding to these little Slavic/Russian-folktale storylines!

As for the audiobook, specifically, the narrators (Helen Laser; James Fouhey; Tim Campbell) all did a great job making the audio flow and distinguishing between characters without overdoing the theatrics, which I always appreciate. The switches between all the Polish, American, and other, accents was also pretty impressive.

In a world where monsters live off of human emotions, Dymitr is on a quest. His goal is to find the infamous baba jaga but he’s on a short timeline. With a holy flower in tow, Dymitr has 36 hours to accomplish his goal. Along the way he meets Ala. She’s desperate to cure the curse bestowed upon her family so she joins forces with Dymitr. As they make their way through the city, they come across some unsavory creatures but that won’t slow them down.

This book was a lot of fun! It’s definitely high fantasy and pushes the reader to know the ins and outs of fantasy lore to grasp what’s going on in the story. The cast of characters are a delight and I enjoyed each of the interactions the MCs had with all of them. I liked this side of Roth! I’ve only read her dystopian works so to have a different world from her imagination was so good. Her writing is truly a delight. The multi-narration of this book made it difficult to delineate which character was speaking. Both of the male authors sound VERY similar and the male character voices were not consistent. I had to skip back on a few occasions to understand who was speaking when the men were narrating. I wish there was more of a difference between the men so I knew which POV we were in. Overall, I give this a 4/5 stars!

“You have spent too much time with mortals if you expect magic to move in a straight line.”

I don’t know how to explain this book. Just picture Polish folk creatures in modern day Chicago and a mysterious mortal shows up on an unspecified quest. Chaos ensues. Enjoy!

This was a quick read for me. I liked the modern take on folklore and the way various creatures have adapted to contemporary life. In some ways, it felt a little experimental. The narrative bounces around between both characters and timelines. This felt confusing, but ultimately gave the reader a better sense of the entire story. As Baba Yaga says, magic is crooked.

The audiobook is narrated by Helen Laser, James Fouhey, and Tim Campbell. I absolutely love when audiobooks have different narrators for the main POV characters! This was a very quick, enjoyable listen. I liked the intro and outro music.

Let's be honest, I'm new to the world of audiobooks. I've listened/read to maybe a total of 8 books, mostly non-fiction. So when When Among Crows got past the first chapter/introduction, I wanted to burst out laughing. Sure, it probably didn't help that I listened to it at 1.75x the speed. However, hearing the narrators "mimic" the other characters, especially the male POVs speaking the female words, had me crying with laughter. Okay. I got that out of the way.

For a novella, this really did a great job telling Veronica Roth's story of a MMC trying to redeem himself from a familial legacy of "monster" killers. In doing so, he goes through a trial, faces his own family and past, and needs to earn the trust of those who he would ordinarily unalive to help him. It's a three POV story of slavic mythology in modern Chicago. Throw in some flashbacks for the three main characters, and it basically sums it all up. You could also say that it's similar to an episode of Supernatural, minus the idiocy of Dean and Sam Winchester.

This novella easily could have been a full fledged novel, even duology/series. If Veronica Roth ever writes another book about this world/characters, count me in. Definitely worth the hype for me and will recommend to all. Thank you Netgalley, Macmillian Audio/Tor Books for allowing me to preview this great story for a review.

Will be posting to Goodreads, Instagram, and Storygraph

*4 stars*

This was an incredibly rich, atmospheric story. I really enjoyed all the folklore elements juxtaposed with modern day. While I think the novella concluded perfectly, I wish we had gotten more time with these characters and stories.

After reading Divergent and Arch-conspirator I thought maybe Roth’s writing just wasn’t for me but this has me wanting to go back and read some of her other more recent things.

The narration was excellent, each character was so distinct and even with three different narrators it felt very cohesive.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ALC of this work. All opinions in this review are my own.

So think Grishaverse (Shadow & Bone) vibes but give it a contemporary urban vibe for adults and you have this little novella. The city of Chicago, as always, is painted so vividly in this book that it almost stands as another character and I always appreciate that in Veronica Roth's books. While set in the US, the story line weaves in Slavic folklore including a stryzgon, a zmora, and the infamous Baba Jaga. I would not have minded if this book was fleshed out into another hundred pages or so. Considering that we are following three different point of views on a 24-hour mission and sorting through some pretty heavy emotions and evils, I just wanted more. However, I did enjoy what we got. For a novella, the pacing was excellent and the journey we took with Ala, Nico, and Dymitir was dark and worthwhile.

This is one of the most mediocre books I've read. I have nothing good or bad to say about it. Maybe I would have liked it more if it was longer and I had a chance to care more about the characters.

Let me preface by saying I swore after Allegiant (Divergent series) to never read anything by this author again lol. I’ve kept to that until this book. Does this book change my mind? Not really.

The premise is interesting, and I enjoyed the story. The characters are compelling, and the story is woven together well. I think it’s worth a read.

I didn’t love the male narrator. I found his voice to be distracting at times. This is a personal thing so others may enjoy him. I wished it had been done by the female narrator as I preferred her voice.

Overall, it’s an enjoyable tale.