Children of Chicago

De: Cynthia Pelayo

Narrado por: Sofia Willingham

This horrifying retelling of the Pied Piper fairytale set in present-day Chicago is an edge-of-your-seat, chills-up-the-spine thrill ride.

When Detective Lauren Medina sees the calling card at a murder scene in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood, she knows the Pied Piper has returned. When another teenager is brutally murdered at the same lagoon where her sister's body was found floating years before, she is certain that the Pied Piper is not just back, he's looking for payment he's owed from her. Lauren's torn between protecting the city she has sworn to keep safe, and keeping a promise she made long ago with her sister's murderer. She may have to ruin her life by exposing her secrets and lies to stop the Pied Piper before he collects.

©2021 Cynthia Pelayo (P)2021 Tantor

Dark modern fairytale

I highly recommend this Bram Stoker Award Nominated story. It does not disappoint. Read her stuff if you are into horror or dark fantasy. Looking forward to reading more of Pelayo’s work!

Thrilling twist on classic fairy tales!

I loved the story. A great and dark spin on folklore and fairy tales. Can't wait to get to the next book in the series.

more like this please!

I loved this story! Cynthia blended real life and fairy tales together so well. I would love to read or listen to more stories like this.

Suspenseful Writing

Whew! This book kept me on my toes. Being from Chicago I could of course imagine each location described and that made the story come to life easily. Cynthia Pelayo’s writing style is easy to read and captures you from the first sentence.

Great story!

Great story, especially since I live in Chicago. My only complaint is the narration; it was so robotic, almost like the computer voice that answers when you call Walgreens.

Great Story

The storyline was different and that is refreshing. I read another review that said there were no likeable characters... I totally agree. The author added Chicago History and Literary Foklore in the plot. I felt like I was constantly learning while I was moving along with the storyline. It's definitely dark. Overall I'd say pretty good listen.

Great Detail of the Chicago Setting

being from the Chicago area it was really delightful to hear all the place names and culture called out. I thought the storytelling from the point of view of the lead character was done well. a good combination of description and dialogue as well as their own inner thoughts and feelings

Did Not Finish - Dull, pointless, and badly read

Really just a dull, meandering book so far and I don't know that I'll continue. I'm going to give it another shot before the end, but I doubt much will change in my overall opinion. Pelayos prose is rough and boring, lacking any sort of rhythm or poetry and her narrative isn'tuch better. Bog standard lady detective nonsense with a massive, unconscionable amount of Chicago jammed into every other paragraph.
The narration is the worst part. Sofia Willingham couldn't narrate a Pop Tarts box without making me want to gouge my ears out. She does this weird, atonal upspeak thing the entire time that is just awful, and her character voices are completely uninspired. Probably she's normally a voice over artist for insurance company answering services and should stick to that going forward.

Too much unrelated history

The story wanders off into a history lesson more often than not for the city, the books and makes it hard to connect the dots to the big story.
And oh my goodness the protagonist is annoying and not well rounded-
The narrator is why I stayed but the story is meeehhhh