A Restless Truth Audiobook By Freya Marske cover art

A Restless Truth

The Last Binding, Book 2

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A Restless Truth

By: Freya Marske
Narrated by: Aysha Kala
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2022 BookPage Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
Hugo Award - Nominee, Short-listed

A Restless Truth is the second entry in Freya Marske’s beloved, award-winning Last Binding trilogy, the queer historical fantasy series that began with A Marvellous Light.

"Narrator Aysha Kala delivers action and romance in this sequel to A MARVELLOUS LIGHT."- AudioFile Magazine

“Sublime prose, top-notch world-building, delightfully queer.”—TJ Klune, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, on A Marvellous Light

Magic! Murder! Shipboard romance!

Maud Blyth has always longed for adventure. She expected plenty of it when she volunteered to serve as an old lady’s companion on an ocean liner, in order to help her beloved older brother unravel a magical conspiracy that began generations ago.

What she didn’t expect was for the old lady in question to turn up dead on the first day of the voyage. Now she has to deal with a dead body, a disrespectful parrot, and the lovely, dangerously outrageous Violet Debenham, who’s also returning home to England. Violet is everything that Maud has been trained to distrust yet can’t help but desire: a magician, an actress, and a magnet for scandal.

Surrounded by the open sea and a ship full of suspects, Maud and Violet must first drop the masks that they’ve both learned to wear before they can unmask a murderer and somehow get their hands on a magical object worth killing for—without ending up dead in the water themselves.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor.com.

©2022 Freya Marske (P)2022 Macmillan Audio Fantasy Historical Literature & Fiction Science Fiction & Fantasy

Critic reviews

A Most Anticipated in 2022 Book for BookPage | Autostraddle | Book Riot

"Combining the greatest elements of mystery, fantasy, and romance, this book is a true soul-fluttering delight."—Buzzfeed

"From the staggeringly excellent world-building to the fleshed-out and lovable characters, A Restless Truth is a delectable sapphic fantasy-adventure on the high seas. Maud and Violet stole my heart from page one. Never has the term \"to ship\" been more appropriate."—Megan Bannen, author of The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy
Wonderful Characters • Engaging Mystery • Beautiful Imagery • Accurate Intimacy • Delightful Story • Nuanced Accents
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I loved everything about this story: the mystery, the romance, the writing and narration. Can’t wait for the final book!

Fantastic Adventure

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I am not sure why, but this series just does not hold my attention. It has literally every element of a story that I love. There's magic, mystery, a fun love story, it's historical...I just don't know why I space out and have no idea what is going on in the story by the time I tune back in.

Well written, wonderful narrator, but...

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I really loved the first book and the vocal performance of the first book and was almost sad the same actor wasn’t doing this book. I’m so glad they did! The actress was wonderful and really helped get me into the story. Love the LGBTQ representation and cannot wait for the third book!

Great second installment!

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Wonderful performance; there are so many nuances to the different accents and voices and the narrator does excellent work.

Magical and wonderful

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For reasons completely lost to me - I really didn't want to read this. I even tried skipping straight to the 3rd book but quickly realized that this story has one major continuous arch and needs to be read complete, and in order. Anyway I was wrong and dumb because this story was a delight. Adventure, romance, seduction, mystery, magic , murder and humor. This has it all.

Delightful

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Wow 3rd historical for the year, and I'm officially experiencing Edwardian burnout. I LOVED IT! But I've hit my limit of potentially ruined women for now, and I'm glad that the third book in the series isn't set to release until November. Because while I am VERY interested in how that pairing with work out, and I have a ton of theories about some of the mystery....I am glad for the break.

Maud and Violet were nearly a perfect mix for me. Maud is the naive young woman, just learning about what she wants and how to get it. Violet is the experienced seductress who is absolutely dying to be the next big scandal. Violet is the perfect person to teach Maud all about her various appetites. And holy wow the lessons are HOT.

That cover! *swoon* I mean. The symbolism of the hourglass for a F/F romance?! It's stunning!!!

The action and unravelling the mystery is so well done. I am shocked that this book supposedly only spanned 6 days....so much happened!!! I'm still reeling over the timeline, and the ridiculousness of some of the dealings. There's a stampede for crying out loud! LOL

I must say, I did take off some points because guide lights weren't a large part of this story, and they're clearly the best part of this magic system. :)

Can we talk about that cover???

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Freya Marske did wonders developing these characters, putting such love and care with each emotion and flaw. Unfortunately the narrator, Aysha Kala, has completely blotched them. Conversations do not flow appropriately and tone shift in character voice that is described ON PAGE is not reflected in the narration. And for the love of god, the edit to the word “chemise”. Instead of re-recording the whole sentence only the single word is edited. It is painfully obvious that Kala has a limited range, specifically when performing different characters. I personally think this book deserves a new narrator. After listening to the first book, I could picture Edwin. The way Thorpe brought him to life with short snappy sentences. Now after listening to the third book, I love Maud and Violet MORE because the narrator is bringing their characters to life. As a gay woman, I’m consistently disappointed in how historical WLW romance is treated. And here comes a wonderful story, with well developed characters and accurately depicted intimacy. And it’s botched by a narrator.

BOOK GREAT / NARRATION HORRIBLE

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I loved this book. It’s well-written: clever, punchy, sexy, and so much fun. The narrator was fantastic too. I’m sad it’s over!

Fun, magic, spice

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Perfect! Marske's narrative voice has gotten even stronger and her gift for creating beautiful imagery shines especially bright. Aysha Kala gave the exact right voice to each character, especially Violet.

I can't wait for the next one!

A perfect follow up to A Marvelous Light!

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This series has been amazing! I really enjoyed it through audio and physical copy. Can’t wait for the next one!!!

Amazing

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