I liked the story and the realistic, gruesome parts of it. I do have some issues with Bastards Honour though. Spoilers ahead!
I like Thadred, but over the course of the book he didn’t seem consistent. Also Seredwin morphed from resourceful and creative single mother with backbone to damsel in distress, needing to be saved and reassured by Thad. And as a mother myself I really don’t get how she was able to swoon over Thadred while her son is missing. I would not have a single other thought than getting my child back, he could be Brad Pitt or whatever and I wouldn’t care. Personally I would have even understood if she had snapped at him a few times while he is going through the motions of paperwork and dinners, when her SON IS MISSING. She never got into fierce mama bear mode, that was sad.
Also minor detail: in Bastards Honour Thadred and Ser act like they haven’t heard how Vesha went into the brothel. But they were the ones to interview Odette in Daindreths Empress, so they already knew.
And some typos (Thadred stomped his hooves) plus sometimes sentences, phrases of even whole paragraphs (one time even half of a chapter) are read twice.
Reading speed very slow, but that can be changed. I had to listen on 1.2 so that it sounded normal for me.
Lovestories very heartwarming. But I think Daindreth is allowed to be angry at Amira even though he loves her. And I think Amira should have taken her vow to the empire as empress more seriously. If she doesn’t want to rule, don’t be empress. If she wants to co-rule she should want to take responsibility for the empires fate, not just for Daindreths.
Development of gods was somewhat weird over the course of the series. It felt like I missed something from not even being sure that gods exist to having dreams sent by them to random ass mortal becoming a god and helping them randomly…?
Overall I had a good time listening. And huge bonus points for naming things, the names fit extremely well into the world and stuck with me. Also I liked the magic system. Loose with not too many rules, but understandable enough.
Daindreth Series 4/5 stars, Bastards Honour 2/5, sorry.