I'm going to start with the embarrassing fact that I was WAY too far into this audiobook before I realized the FMC is Sara B for Sarabi. *facepalm* Bravo Emily, well done, I'm going to go put my dunce cap on in the corner now. 
I thought this was a brilliant reimagining for Lion King/Scar. LK is one of my favorite Disney movies and has been since it originally came out. I loved all the little easter eggs scattered throughout like the Elephant Bones Tavern to a bunch of the names matching up lightly to their characters like "Scar" (Tristan) having a T name for Taka. The narrative as it is reworked for this human situation, works out so well and so much more realistic than it would for the original story (I mean hyenas would never actually win against a pride of lions lol). 
Even though I loved the storyline and plot, I'm rating this lower because the v!rg!nal storyline doesn't do it for me. I know other people are fine with that, but it's not my jam so it was a bit of a turn off for the s3x related parts of the story. The actual build-up and s3xual tension was well done and complemented the plot well. 
Definitely check you triggers before picking this up, it definitely has some dark aspects.