
Chasing the Bard
The Chronicles of Art, Book
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $15.59
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Philippa Ballantine
About this listen
Sive, ancient goddess of the Fey, is busy watching her world die. Darkness creeps over the Fey world, and its once immortal people and creatures are fading away.
As much as she despises humans, Sive knows that across the Veil that separates the worlds, power can be found. So enlisting the help of her trickster cousin Puck, she tracks down a mortal bard who may just offer hope.
As they watch the child become a man, the brutal and destructive power grows stronger in Sive’s realm, threatening to spread across to the Veil between words. Yet as the young bard finds his own strength, he wrestles with his desires for Sive while struggling against her manipulations and her plans for him. The power of words and magic is at his command, but can Sive find a way master her own nature and persuade William Shakespeare to risk his life to save her world?
The author of The Books of the Order, and the co-author of The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences weaves a tale threaded with magic, love, and the power of creation.
©2018 Philippa Ballantine (P)2018 Philippa BallantineListeners also enjoyed...
-
A Court of Thorns and Roses (Part 1 of 2) (Dramatized Adaptation)
- A Court of Thorns and Roses, Book 1
- By: Sarah J. Maas
- Narrated by: Bradley Foster Smith, Christopher Graybill, Eric Messner, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world.
-
-
Amazing story from SJM but performance a bit lackluster
- By Vanessa Rauc on 04-04-22
By: Sarah J. Maas
-
Strange the Dreamer
- By: Laini Taylor
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around - and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old, he's been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.
-
-
Great until the ending
- By Shane A. McGarry on 10-23-17
By: Laini Taylor
-
I, Strahd: The Memoirs of a Vampire
- Ravenloft: Strahd, Book 1
- By: P. N. Elrod
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Some of the parchment pages were the color of cream, thick and substantial, made to last many, many lifetimes. Other pages were thin and desiccated, positively yellow from age, and crackled alarmingly as Van Richten turned them over. There were no ornate illuminations, no fussy borders, only lines of plain text in hard black ink. The flowing handwriting was a bit difficult to follow at first; the writer's style of calligraphy had not been in common use for 300 years. No table of contents, but from the dates it looked to be some kind of history.
-
-
Love it...just one complaint....
- By Ryan Conrad on 03-15-14
By: P. N. Elrod
-
Muse of Nightmares
- By: Laini Taylor
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the wake of tragedy, neither Lazlo nor Sarai are who they were before. One a god, the other a ghost, they struggle to grasp the new boundaries of their selves as dark-minded Minya holds them hostage, intent on vengeance against Weep. Lazlo faces an unthinkable choice—save the woman he loves, or everyone else?—while Sarai feels more helpless than ever. But is she? Sometimes, only the direst need can teach us our own depths, and Sarai, the muse of nightmares, has not yet discovered what she's capable of.
-
-
Terrible over the top teen trash
- By Brian Beisel on 03-19-19
By: Laini Taylor
-
Shadebound
- The Last King, Book 1
- By: David Estes, G.D. Penman
- Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds
- Length: 19 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Artemio Volpe must contend with more than simple intrigue. The embers of war burn bright beyond the horizon of the northern steppes, his already estranged family has been hounded by the assassinations, and the shades of the dead pervade his body and mind, granting him their power at a terrible price.
-
-
Intriguing
- By David on 10-31-22
By: David Estes, and others
-
Blood Rose Rebellion
- Blood Rose Rebellion, Book 1
- By: Rosalyn Eves
- Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sixteen-year-old Anna Arden is barred from society by a defect of blood. Though her family is part of the Luminate, powerful users of magic, she is Barren, unable to perform the simplest spells. Anna would do anything to belong. But her fate takes another course when, after inadvertently breaking her sister's debutante spell - an important chance for a highborn young woman to show her prowess with magic - Anna finds herself exiled to her family's once powerful but now crumbling native Hungary.
-
-
Boring story but good narrator
- By Hayden Gentry on 11-24-22
By: Rosalyn Eves
-
A Court of Thorns and Roses (Part 1 of 2) (Dramatized Adaptation)
- A Court of Thorns and Roses, Book 1
- By: Sarah J. Maas
- Narrated by: Bradley Foster Smith, Christopher Graybill, Eric Messner, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world.
-
-
Amazing story from SJM but performance a bit lackluster
- By Vanessa Rauc on 04-04-22
By: Sarah J. Maas
-
Strange the Dreamer
- By: Laini Taylor
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around - and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old, he's been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.
-
-
Great until the ending
- By Shane A. McGarry on 10-23-17
By: Laini Taylor
-
I, Strahd: The Memoirs of a Vampire
- Ravenloft: Strahd, Book 1
- By: P. N. Elrod
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Some of the parchment pages were the color of cream, thick and substantial, made to last many, many lifetimes. Other pages were thin and desiccated, positively yellow from age, and crackled alarmingly as Van Richten turned them over. There were no ornate illuminations, no fussy borders, only lines of plain text in hard black ink. The flowing handwriting was a bit difficult to follow at first; the writer's style of calligraphy had not been in common use for 300 years. No table of contents, but from the dates it looked to be some kind of history.
-
-
Love it...just one complaint....
- By Ryan Conrad on 03-15-14
By: P. N. Elrod
-
Muse of Nightmares
- By: Laini Taylor
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the wake of tragedy, neither Lazlo nor Sarai are who they were before. One a god, the other a ghost, they struggle to grasp the new boundaries of their selves as dark-minded Minya holds them hostage, intent on vengeance against Weep. Lazlo faces an unthinkable choice—save the woman he loves, or everyone else?—while Sarai feels more helpless than ever. But is she? Sometimes, only the direst need can teach us our own depths, and Sarai, the muse of nightmares, has not yet discovered what she's capable of.
-
-
Terrible over the top teen trash
- By Brian Beisel on 03-19-19
By: Laini Taylor
-
Shadebound
- The Last King, Book 1
- By: David Estes, G.D. Penman
- Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds
- Length: 19 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Artemio Volpe must contend with more than simple intrigue. The embers of war burn bright beyond the horizon of the northern steppes, his already estranged family has been hounded by the assassinations, and the shades of the dead pervade his body and mind, granting him their power at a terrible price.
-
-
Intriguing
- By David on 10-31-22
By: David Estes, and others
-
Blood Rose Rebellion
- Blood Rose Rebellion, Book 1
- By: Rosalyn Eves
- Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sixteen-year-old Anna Arden is barred from society by a defect of blood. Though her family is part of the Luminate, powerful users of magic, she is Barren, unable to perform the simplest spells. Anna would do anything to belong. But her fate takes another course when, after inadvertently breaking her sister's debutante spell - an important chance for a highborn young woman to show her prowess with magic - Anna finds herself exiled to her family's once powerful but now crumbling native Hungary.
-
-
Boring story but good narrator
- By Hayden Gentry on 11-24-22
By: Rosalyn Eves
-
Wintersong
- By: S. Jae-Jones
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All her life, 19-year-old Liesl has heard tales of the beautiful, mysterious Goblin King. He is the Lord of Mischief, the Ruler Underground, and the muse around which her music is composed. Yet, as Liesl helps shoulder the burden of running her family's inn, her dreams of composition and childish fancies about the Goblin King must be set aside in favor of more practical concerns. But when her sister Kathe is taken by the goblins, Liesl journeys to their realm to rescue her sister and return her to the world above.
-
-
Muddled
- By Ingrid on 03-13-17
By: S. Jae-Jones
-
Flame in the Mist
- By: Renée Ahdieh
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Wrath and the Dawn comes a sweeping, action-packed YA adventure set against the backdrop of feudal Japan, where Mulan meets Tamora Pierce.
-
-
Very Good
- By Ingrid on 07-15-17
By: Renée Ahdieh
-
Bride of the Shadow King
- Bride of the Shadow King, Book 1
- By: Sylvia Mercedes
- Narrated by: Emily Lawrence, Tim Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Though she is the oldest daughter, Princess Faraine lives in the background, shunned from court and kept out of sight. Her chronic illness makes her a liability to the crown, and she has learned to give place to her beautiful, favored younger sister in all things. When the handsome and enigmatic Shadow King comes seeking a bride, Faraine is not surprised that her sister is his choice. When King Vor meets the lively Princess Ilsevel, he quickly agrees to a marriage arrangement. So why can’t he get the haunting eyes of her older sister out of his head?
-
-
This story was tragic
- By E Ivet Q on 10-26-22
By: Sylvia Mercedes
-
Saint Death's Daughter
- By: C. S. E. Cooney
- Narrated by: C. S. E. Cooney
- Length: 23 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To be born into a family of royal assassins pretty much guarantees that your life is going to be rather unusual. Especially if, like Miscellaneous 'Lanie' Stones, you also have a vicious allergy to all forms of violence and bloodshed, and an uncanny affinity for bringing the dead back to life. To make matters worse, family debt looms—a debt that will have to be paid sooner rather than later if Lanie and her sister are to retain ownership of the ancestral seat, Stones Manor.
-
-
A BEAUTIFUL, DEAD HUG!
- By Patty on 07-03-22
By: C. S. E. Cooney
-
Wolf Moon
- By: Nora Roberts
- Narrated by: Emily Foster
- Length: 2 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Simone's European hiking excursion is cut short when she is brutally attacked by a wolf-like creature in the Piedmont Mountains of Italy. When she awakens from the attack, she finds she has been changed in inexplicable ways and settles into an isolated lifestyle. While she is ever hopeful for a cure, she is also acutely aware that she may never be the same again.
-
-
Not the best
- By Kimberly on 08-31-16
By: Nora Roberts
-
Heart of the Fae
- The Otherworld, Book 1
- By: Emma Hamm
- Narrated by: Siobhan Waring
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A plague sweeps across the emerald hills of Ui Neiill, leaving a young midwife's father with months to live. To save her people, Sorcha makes a deal with a dangerous Fae. She must travel across the sea, through merrow and kelpie lands, to find a forgotten king on a crumbling throne.
-
-
A Romantic Fantasy that will steal your heart.
- By cosmitron on 06-08-18
By: Emma Hamm
-
Roses in Amber
- A Beauty and the Beast Story
- By: C. E. Murphy
- Narrated by: Zehra Jane Naqvi
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amber Gryce believes in magic the way anyone does: as a thing of the past, marked now only by the long reign of an ancient queen sworn to live until her stolen son is returned to her. Such stories are romantic but distant for Amber, surrounded by family and wealth. But like magic, wealth can disappear. Left destitute, Amber's family retreats to a forest holding far from their city home, where Amber's love of roses leads her into the heart of enchantment
-
-
Quite unique, but not my favorite retelling
- By Melinda on 09-24-22
By: C. E. Murphy
-
Mother of Shadows
- The Chosen series, Book 1
- By: Meg Anne
- Narrated by: Noelle Bridges
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Helena's life had always been quiet. In fact, she liked it that way. When her childhood friend returns home and tells her that she is the prophesied ruler of the Chosen, those blessed with the gift of magic, her quiet life goes up in flames. Suddenly Helena finds herself surrounded by a circle of protectors, each having sworn their loyalty to her since her birth. All except for one: her Mate. It's not enough that she must learn how to use her magic and undergo a trial to prove her worthiness; in order to claim her title, Helena must find the man who carries the other half of her soul.
-
-
Entertaining enough
- By talielovesbooks on 09-12-19
By: Meg Anne
-
Rhapsody
- Child of Blood
- By: Elizabeth Haydon
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 30 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rhapsody is a woman, a singer of some talent who is swept up into events of world-shattering import. On the run from an old romantic interest who won't take no for an answer, Rhapsody literally bumps into a couple of shady characters: half breeds who come to her rescue in the nick of time. Only the rescue turns into an abduction, and Rhapsody soon finds herself dragged along on an epic voyage--one that spans centuries and ranges across a wonder-filled fantasy world.
-
-
Good story! Terrible narration.
- By CharmY2K on 04-30-15
By: Elizabeth Haydon
-
Rift
- A Nightshade Novel
- By: Andrea Cremer
- Narrated by: Sile Bermingham
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ember Morrow was promised to the knights of Conatus at birth, her life traded for her mother's. So when the horsemen come for her, soon after her 16th birthday, Ember's not surprised. What does surprise her, though, is the magic the knights wield, the demons they hunt, and the feelings she has for Barrow Hess, the powerful man she serves. When the knights realize that one among them is dabbling in dark magic, danger heightens and Ember must choose whether to follow the path to darkness or to escape the order and pledge her life to destroying her fellow knights.
-
-
What an awesome prequel.
- By APayne on 04-11-19
By: Andrea Cremer
-
Forest of a Thousand Lanterns
- Rise of the Empress, Book 1
- By: Julie C. Dao
- Narrated by: Kim Mai Guest
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eighteen-year-old Xifeng is beautiful. The stars say she is destined for greatness, that she is meant to be empress of Feng Lu. But only if she embraces the darkness within her. Growing up as a peasant in a forgotten village, Xifeng longs to fulfill the destiny promised to her by her cruel aunt, the witch Guma, who has read the cards and seen glimmers of Xifeng's majestic future. But is the price of the throne too high? Because in order to achieve greatness, she must spurn the young man who loves her and exploit the callous magic that runs through her veins.
-
-
Wow...
- By KaitheShopper on 09-22-18
By: Julie C. Dao
-
Unbound
- Unbound, Book 1
- By: Shawn Speakman
- Narrated by: Dick Hill, Tim Gerard Reynolds, Nick Podehl, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Not bound as a book. Free. Like Unfettered before it, the contributing writers of Unbound were allowed to submit the tales they wished fans of genre to hear - without the constraints of a shackling theme. The result is magical. Twenty-three all-original stories are sure to captivate you - some will move you to tears while others will keep you listening long into the night. The power of Unbound lies in its variety of tales and the voices behind them. If you are a fan of discovering new writers or hearing the works of beloved authors, Unbound is for you.
-
-
There are some gems in this one
- By Gyula Mészáros on 04-16-18
By: Shawn Speakman