Whispers of the Shattered Realm

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Whispers of the Shattered Realm

By: Eric James

Narrated by: Aubrey Parsons

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About this listen

In the quiet of the dimly lit, icy-cold castle walls, Dorian and Anya's lips met passionately in the intimacy of the moment.

Dorian experienced an intensity of fire never felt before, as the taste of Anya's lips was like sweet plum nectar.

The kiss sent thrills down Anya's spine too. She had never felt more at home than in his arms in this moment; their connection went beyond words and bonded them in ways she could barely fathom. Dorian saw in the same moment a chance at redemption for all the heinous ruin he had caused in his life as a soldier, much of it perpetrated against Anya's homeland. To earn redemption, he would first have to free Elyndor from the curse of Jaiha's savaged and broken heart, a journey to be filled with terrifying whispering forests that could see through to ones darkest fears and bring screeching torment to all who passed.

A sweeping emotional saga of love, honor, and truths of the human heart filled with ancient magic and the timeless lore of a nation worth risking violent death to save.

Epic

Fantasy

Heartfelt

Most relevant

I love well-written, nuanced fantasy set in complex worlds, and I was hoping this book would be that. Unfortunately, it missed the mark on several points, though I did enjoy aspects of it. Two things greatly decreased my enjoyment of the story. First, this book had a lot of head-hopping, sometimes jumping from what I imagine would be from paragraph to paragraph within a scene (although I cannot say for certain because I listened to the audiobook version of it). To me, that's a mark of an amateur author who, perhaps, has not studied the writing craft deeply or drawn sound conclusions from their wide reading (or from complaints they’ve read in other reviews about how much readers despise the practice). The author’s first or second foray into writing? Again, I don't know if that is so with this author. However, I found the world he created, including the magic, family struggles, power struggles, and meetings with important beings—fascinating to listen to and ponder. Another “rookie mistake” a little later.

The second thing I found irksome—and it truly was, making me have to spread listening to this book out over several days more than I would have liked to—was the narrator. He's an English gentleman, and as soon as I heard that voice, I thought that could be a fun element. I think sometimes when I read epic fantasy like this, I almost always have an English narrator in my head talking to me! However, I was soon disappointed. Methinks the man is a frustrated actor, and he inappropriately over-acted the seemingly high-strung male characters. He gave some peculiar variants of an English accent and made all of them more strident when their backs were up against the wall than seemed appropriate or believable. It was over the top and wearing on the ear. Also, I think it gives the wrong impression of the characters when their voicings are like that.

And now to the book's other rookie mistake. At the book review site I chose this from, the author called it a romantic fantasy, love story, and romantasy. However, for far too long, it wasn't clear who the primary love interest couple would be. As the story moves along and it becomes a quest before the large battle, two women and two men become unlikely allies working together to try to save their realm. We know from the beginning that one female has been attracted to one of the males for a long time. The other female has a deep hatred of the same man because of what he did to her land and her people. One man is a monk who, at the beginning, is conflicted about whether he wants to remain one, and he is drawn to one of these females. Since it's an audiobook, I can't put a percentage-of-the-story number on how long it took for which characters would make up “the couple” to be revealed, but it took way too long if it is to be considered to have “a strong and complicated underlying love story,” which was also stated at the book review site. Then what actually happened with that female character made me question whether this author understands the core tenets of a genre fiction love story because it was an epic fail in that regard at the end. The epilogue teases at a potential resolution but gives only a hint of it in a rather unsatisfying cliffhanger. That’s another thing I don't enjoy in a connected series featuring the same couple. And it should definitely be stated in the book description on any bookseller website that it has one as many of us dislike reading books with cliffhangers. I feel somewhat conflicted about my desire to continue with the rest of the trilogy. I like the characters and world, but I don’t trust the author’s writing chops. I sincerely hope the author has shaken off his freshman mistakes and will have found a better narrator or told this one to tone it down!

Rookie Mistakes But Interesting World & Characters