Darlene's Book Nook: Macmillan Audio

Showing posts with label Macmillan Audio. Show all posts

Friday, September 7, 2018

#Audiobook #Review: 5 out of 5 stars for Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young @adriennebooks @MacmillanAudio @KhristineHvam

TITLE: Sky in the Deep

SERIES: Sky in the Deep, Book #1
AUTHOR: Adrienne Young

NARRATOR: Khristine Hvam

PUBLISHER: Macmillan Young Listeners

PUBLICATION DATE: April 24, 2018

FORMAT: Unabridged audiobook

LENGTH: 8 hrs and 40 mins

GENRE: Young Adult, Fantasy

ISBN: 9781427296986

Seventeen-year-old Eelyn’s world is war. Raised to fight alongside her Aska clansmen in a generations-old blood feud against the Riki, her life is brutal but simple: fight and survive. Until the day she sees the impossible on the battlefield—her brother, fighting with the enemy—the brother she watched die five years ago.

Faced with her brother's betrayal, she must survive the winter in the mountains with the Riki if she wants to make it back to the fjord after the thaw. But when she begins to see herself in the people she's been taught to hate, the world Eelyn once knew begins to crumble. And after the village is raided by a ruthless clan many believe to be a myth, Eelyn is given no choice but to trust Fiske, her brother’s friend who has tried more than once to kill her. Together, they must end the blood feud between their clans or watch their people be slaughtered.

A lush, Viking-age inspired fantasy about loyalty, forgiveness, and the definition of family.

MY REVIEW:

If you are going to read one YA debut this year, pick this one!!! This book totally blew me away. I laughed, I cried, and I immediately had to re-listen to the ending because I just wasn't ready to say goodbye.

This 2018 YA debut has been on my radar for a while. With a kickass Viking female warrior and that gorgeous cover, I was immediately intrigued. This one did not let me down! I had requested it from my library on Overdrive, and my hold came in while I was painting my children's bedrooms. I essentially listened to the entire audiobook in one day. When I finished, I was bummed that it was over! I wanted more. The author wrote on Goodreads that there is a companion novel slated for release in 2019, and I can't wait!!

The heroine, Eelyn, is an Aska warrior. While fighting with her fellow tribesmen against the Riki, she is about to be slain when a voice shouts out to the man about to kill her and tells him to stop. Eelyn can hardly believe her eyes when she sees that the Riki man who stopped her would-be-killer is none other than her brother, Iri, who she thought died in battle five years earlier. When she tells her father about it later, he tells her that her it was her brother's spirit that saved her life and does not believe that he was actually there in the flesh. Eelyn is not convinced.

As the battle continues, Eelyn discovers that she is right. Iri and his Riki brother, Fiske, take Eelyn as their prisoner to save her life.

Oh wow, I loved everything about this story! I loved that the female warriors fought alongside their brothers and fathers and were not treated any differently just because they were girls. They were trained to fight, and their gender was not seen as a weakness. I loved the setting and the landscape, which the author so vividly describes. I fell in love with each of the characters, and I am hoping that there will be many more companion novels in this series. This is definitely going to be one of my favourite reads of 2018.

Kristine Hvam became one of my favourite narrators after listening to her performance in Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke & Bone. Although she didn't provide the same range of unique vocalizations in this book, she was still a delight. She's the type of narrator who oozes their emotions through every word, and she had me spellbound. Here is a sample of the narration:

MY RATING:

5 stars!! I loved it, and you should definitely put it on your TBR if you enjoy YA fantasy with strong heroines.

This book qualifies as:

#48 for my Audiobook Challenge 2018
#4 for my Goodreads 2018 Chubby Chunkster Challenge

#55 for my Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2018
#10 for my The Official 2018 TBR Pile Challenge
#15 for my 2018 Reading Assignment Challenge
#80 for my Beat the Backlist 2018 Challenge
#73 for my The Backlist Reader Challenge 2018
#48 for my New Authors 2018 Reading Challenge

#49 for my 2018 Try Something New Challenge

#8A for my Monthly Key Word Challenge
#9C for my 2018 Literary Escapes Challenge

#80A for my Good Rule Reading Challenge
#15 for my 2018 Platypire Diversity Reading Challenge
#39 for my What An Animal Reading Challenge 2018
#29 for my 2018 Paranormal Reading Challenge
#4 for my 2018 Witches & Witchcraft Reading Challenge
#18 for my Science Fiction vs Fantasy Bingo 2018
Task #21 for my Goodreads 2018 Summer Scavenger Challenge: Music Styles
#32 for my COYER Big Summer Birthday Bash

View all my reviews

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Audiobook Review: Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

TITLE: Scarlet

SERIES: Lunar Chronicles, Book #2
AUTHOR: Marissa Meyer

NARRATOR: Rebecca Soler
PUBLISHER: Macmillan Audio
PUBLICATION DATE: February 5, 2013

FORMAT: Unabridged audiobook, 11 hrs and 19 mins
GENRE: Young Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction/Dystopia
ISBN: 9781427229649

Cinder returns in the second thrilling installment of the New York Times-bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She's trying to break out of prison—even though if she succeeds, she'll be the Commonwealth's most wanted fugitive.

Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit's grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn't know about her grandmother and the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother's whereabouts, she has no choice but to trust him, though he clearly has a few dark secrets of his own.

As Scarlet and Wolf work to unravel one mystery, they find another when they cross paths with Cinder. Together, they must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen who will do anything to make Prince Kai her husband, her king, her prisoner.

MY REVIEW:

I received this audiobook from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive any compensation for my review, and the views expressed herein are my own.

The second book in the Lunar Chronicles series was really good!

The story begins the day after Cinder’s attendance at Prince Kai’s ball, and the news footage of her fall down the palace steps has been broadcast over the entire globe. Scarlet Benoit is an 18 year-old young woman, who lives with her grandmother in Rieux, France. Her grandmother has been missing for the past two weeks, and the only clue is her identification chip which has been left behind. The police have written off the disappearance as a likely suicide, since most people who want to disappear will cut out their ID chip. Scarlet doesn’t buy it. She knows her grandmother would never abandon her, and she is determined to find her.

Scarlet meets a hungry young man named “Wolf,” who has a penchant for Scarlet’s homegrown tomatoes. He asks for a job as a farmhand, but Scarlet doesn’t really need one. Scarlet returns home one day to a ransacked house, and she finds her father searching for something. His arms have scars all over them, and he is utterly hysterical. Wolf happens to be with Scarlet and, when her father sees the tattoo on Wolf’s arm, he freaks out and tells Scarlet that Wolf is “one of them”- one of the men who abducted her grandmother and are holding her hostage for something they think she has. Wolf insists that he is no longer a part of the gang and that joining it was the biggest mistake of his life, but he offers to take Scarlet to the gang’s headquarters where he believes they would be holding her grandmother.

Meanwhile, back in the Eastern Commonwealth, Cinder is trying to find a way to escape from her cell before Queen Levana can take her back to Luna.

I absolutely loved Cinder when I listened to it last year and couldn’t wait to find out what happens next. I was curious how Meyer would tie the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood to Cinder’s, and she did it brilliantly! I do not want to give away any spoilers, so I will just say that I was really impressed how Cinder’s path and Scarlet’s path become tangled together.

I really enjoyed Scarlet, though not as much as Cinder. Still, it was a solid book in the series. One big disappointment for me was the absence of Dr. Erland, who I adored in Cinder. I really missed his presence, and I hope that Cinder will be reunited with him in Cress which is expected to be published in 2014. On the plus side, I thought the budding romance between Scarlet and Wolf had more chemistry than Cinder’s relationship with Prince Kai. Meyer kept me on my toes, wondering whether Wolf was good or bad!

Narrator Rebecca Soler is so good! I love her French accent, and she has the right amount of sass to bring attitude to Cinder’s and Scarlet’s characters without coming across as annoying. Her vocalizations make all the characters easily distinguishable, and her exuberance brings excitement to the story.

MY RATING:

4 stars!! It was really good, and you should add it to your TBR list! A big thanks to Raincoast Books and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to review this audiobook!