Audio Book Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Daughter of Smoke and Bone #1)
By Laini Taylor
Narrated by Khristine Hvam
****
(I downloaded this title for free from the www.audiobooksync.com summer reading program.)

“Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well.” 

Karou is a teenager who attends a school for the arts in Prague. She has blue hair and tattoos, most obvious of which are the eyes on each palm and "true" and "story" on each wrist. She's also a brilliant artist and her friends love to look at her sketch book for the fantastic creatures she draws there. In addition to the beautiful drawings, Karou tells stories of the different "characters." What her friends don't know is that these creatures are real, and they're Karou's family.

Karou's family are Chimera - creatures made up of different animal parts (kinda like the Sphinx). Unbeknownst to Karou, her family has been fighting a war for a century; a war against the angels.

Enter Akiva, a beautiful angel who comes to earth to close the portals Karou's family uses to access our world. Akiva meets Karou and the sparks (and flames) fly. They fall in love, but there's far more to their story than either could possibly guess.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone is a mesmerizing mix of love and hate, peace and war, romance and tragedy. Taylor has fused together two worlds in a fascinating and believable way and Hvam narrates it beautifully. And just when you have hope that everything will work out for our star-crossed lovers, Taylor comes along and sucker punches you. Thank heaven's there's a sequel! (It'll be available in 2 months.)

This is a great story for anyone who enjoys paranormal romance, mythology, or stories that take place in foreign locales. Highly recommended.

P.S. Check out this book trailer I did for Daughter of Smoke and Bone!

Audio Book Review: The Red Pyramid

The Red Pyramid (Kane Chronicles #1)   *****
by Rick Riordan  

Audio CD, unabridged, read by Kevin R. Free and Katherine Kellgren

From Goodreads:
Since their mother's death, Carter and Sadie have become near strangers. While Sadie has lived with her grandparents in London, her brother has traveled the world with their father, the brilliant Egyptologist, Dr. Julius Kane.

One night, Dr. Kane brings the siblings together for a "research experiment" at the British Museum, where he hopes to set things right for his family. Instead, he unleashes the Egyptian god Set, who banishes him to oblivion and forces the children to flee for their lives.

Soon, Sadie and Carter discover that the gods of Egypt are waking, and the worst of them —Set— has his sights on the Kanes. To stop him, the siblings embark on a dangerous journey across the globe - a quest that brings them ever closer to the truth about their family and their links to a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs.
From me:
The Kane Chronicles are a new series by the author of the Percy Jackson books. And by new, I mean different - this book is a couple of years old now, but the series is not connected to the Percy books (at least to my knowledge). Where the Olympians series focuses on figures from Greek mythology, the Kane titles feature the Egyptian gods. One of my favorite parts of this book was how Riordan made history interesting.

Riordan did an excellent job of creating a world that was exciting and fun. It really lends itself to the audio format, as the main characters switch back and forth with the narration as though they're making a recording for future listeners (that, and Kevin R. Price and Katherine Kellgren did an amazing job voicing the narration). The reader/listener is drawn in by the adventure and mystery, but the story is also kept light by the teasing asides between Sadie and Carter as they're narrating. I like how Riordan kept this good-versus-evil, save-the-world tale more fun than scary. The reader also gets drawn into the story as though they may be one of the children with the "blood of the pharaohs."

A great read for the prescribed age-group of grades 4-9, but I got a real kick out of it, too!

Audio Book Review: Chime

Chime  *****
Author: Franny Billingsley
Narration: Susan Duerden

Please pardon the tone of this review; I'm still in the moody mental state this story created.

This book sucked me in, but I'm not entirely sure why. It wasn't necessarily action packed or fraught with danger or suspense, romance or excitement. I think it may have been the mood of the story. I listened to the audio book, and it felt like listening to a folktale by firelight. It was a puzzle I tried to put together as I listened. I managed to match up a few of the pieces on my own, but it wasn't until the end that everything clicked; Franny Billingsley gave just enough clues that when all was revealed, the reader wasn't left wondering at how everything fit.

The audio reader had an elegant voice that made listening a pleasure. I wonder how I would have liked it if I read the story from the page rather than listening to it, how that would have changed my response. I'm honestly not sure.

One last thought: I'm not certain the cover of the book matched the style of the story. I think the cover art is lovely, but it gives the expectation of something edgier. If I'd had my druthers, I would have gone for a moodier, more whimsical cover art, something with flowing hair or mysterious landscape.

Audio Book Review: Throne of Fire

The Throne of Fire (Kane Chronicles #2)  *****
Author: Rick Riordan
Narration: Kevin Free, Katherine Kellgren

This is such a great series! I completely love the adventure story Riordan has created. It's like Indiana Jones for kids. The Kane siblings are on another quest to save the world, this time from Chaos (aka Apophis). Again, the story alternates between Sadie and Carter's narration. The book is is supposed to be a transcript of a recording, which is why the audio version is so great. Plus the readers are fantastic! (A good reader makes all the difference.)

Fun story, fun series. I highly recommend it!