Romantasy

Audiobook: The Darkness Within by Ang T. Dalton

August 19, 2026

Synopsis:

Magic is cursed. Fate is a game. And love is the deadliest price.

Scarlet Thorne thought she was done playing with the cards she was dealt. But life has thrown her back into the ring. Waking up in Hollow Summit wasn’t all that bad—until she met Fallon, the twin sister she never knew existed.

Fallon Fitzroy is everything Scarlet is disciplined, calculating, and seemingly determined to hate her. And with their father, General Arrow Fitzroy, Scarlet is forced to navigate not only a fractured family but a destiny she never asked for.

To defeat the Grim, the sisters must work with the Wylder brothers. Fallon is forced to ally with her sworn enemy—Shayde—the one she’ll never forgive for the role he played in Scarlet’s capture. Meanwhile, Scarlet has given her heart to Rhodes, even as the curse entwining his fate threatens to tear them apart.

Humankind has one last chance to reverse the Mareki’s Curse. And Scarlet and Fallon are the ones bound to fulfill the prophecy…but at a devastating cost. To restore their world’s magic, the Forgotten Realm must fall.

And when it does, Scarlet will be forced to give more than her power—she may have to surrender her heart.

As loyalties fracture and the Grim closes in, Scarlet must face her darkest truths, the enemies at her side, and a fate that could cost her everything.

Review:

After the cliffhanger ending of the first book, I was eager to find out what would happen next, and this book dives right into it.

Learning that Scarlet had a twin sister, one who knew about her existence and had been keeping an eye on her, was an interesting story arc. The dynamic between the two of them was fascinating to follow. Both had expectations of each other that could not have been more wrong, and watching their relationship evolve little by little was one of the highlights of the book for me.
Scarlet having to deal with the betrayal and loss of one of her friends was heartbreaking to witness.

The urgency and tension ramped up even more in this instalment, with everyone trying to learn more about the prophecy and put the puzzle pieces together. Placing the sisters at the forefront of the story fit the narrative perfectly.

As with the previous instalment, this one comes with enough complexity to keep me entertained from beginning to end, but it doesn’t add too much of it either. It is easy to follow, and I enjoyed the audiobook a lot. It doesn’t require too much brainpower, which isn’t a bad thing here. Does it come with a lot of elements we typically get from books in this genre? Absolutely, and that was exactly what I was looking for again after enjoying the first one.

🌙 Recension: The Darkness Within (Twisted Thorn #2) by Ang T. Dalton
📚 Genre: Romantasy
📅 Release Date: January 13, 2026
📖 Publisher: Simon Maverick
👤 Narrator: Ellie Gossage, Garrett Kiesel
📗 available in various formats – included in Kindle Unlimited
📱 Read as: Audiobook
💸 Bought
🗣️ Language: English
📆 Pages / Listening Length: 13h 22min
⭐️ 3.5/5