Cleansed

Chaos Reigns Trilogy Book 1

By: G. S. Scott

Narrated by: Sean Duregger

The world is in the grasp of the God of Chaos, his only mantra: Do as Thou Wilt. In the slums of Tuilar, Dirge is an apprentice to the Brotherhood of Assassins who worship the god of Death. His only friend Jacob, a jovial young man, feels at home in the world as it is, but Dirge craves structure.

When Chaos orchestrates the Cleansing, a mass slaughter of children, people stand up against him. Amid the revolt, the prophet of the forgotten God of Order appears. Drawn to the ways of Order, Dirge finds himself at odds with those who raised him. The gods of Chaos, Death, and Order clash, their followers facing off in bloody battle, and Dirge must decide whether to honor his adopted family or the calling to his heart. Jacob believes they should stay out of the fray, wanting nothing to do with any of it.

Hope and honor are Dirge’s shield as he wallows in uncertainty and remorse. The gods are at play, and the world is their game board. How can Dirge choose when men and gods alike are deceitful? The decision he makes may well damn him.

©2018 Scott Smith (P)2020 Scott Smith

Dark Fantasy

This is a dark coming of age fantasy (not my usual listen) but held my interest due to the narration and characters. Enjoyed the characters especially Dirge, Talic, and Jacob, it has monsters and gods with violence and is very deep and dark. I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator or publisher

over all an interesting story, I felt

over all an interesting story, felt like it was lacking in development details at times but may make up for it in later installments

I found the story fascinating....

I for one found the story just fantastic and I loved every min of it. It was gritty and boy did Sean Duregger bring this well written book to life. I mean I couldn’t stop listening to it. My poor husband finally took my headphones off my head at 1am and said enough for the night lolol. Anyway, give it a try I think if you love fantasy then you will love this book.
I was given a free copy of this book for my honest opinion and that’s what you got.

Intriguing world-building, but disappointing plot

As I finished Cleansed, I had to sit back and wonder what the hell I just read. By the end of the book, I still hadn’t figured out whether there was a plot or if it was just a loosely strung-together series of events and abandoned plot threads. Each time the plot began to build in a direction, it felt like the author changed their mind, ditched it, and decided to go with something new. And it’s not that the story has plot twists frequently tossed in, it just keeps changing its course as if the book is more of a loosely related collection of short stories.

The book is a coming-of-age story for Dirge, an orphaned son of a prostitute, who apparently is predestined for some sort of greatness (though I’m not sure what exactly it will be as it changes often). As a coming-of-age story, the book spans over two decades, but this also causes additional issues with the plot. Chapters often jumped forward in time by months or even years, which made following the changing narrative even more difficult. Most of the characters and narrative hooks are also fairly cliché, so they didn’t add anything particularly interesting to help the reader keep track of the story.

Though I didn’t care for the overall organization of the book and its rambling plot, I did think individual chapters were well written. When looked at in isolation, parts of the book were interesting and enjoyable to read. I can tell the author has a talent for writing dialog, character interactions, and building suspense. The action in the series was also well done and though there were some pretty graphic descriptions of blood, gore, and unsavory actions, most were included to bring to life the dark and grim setting and show some of the more intriguing cultural aspects of living in a world ruled by chaos. I just wish the plot meshed together better and everything made sense when looking at the book as a whole.

I will also mention a warning - this book examines some primal issues concerning the nature of morality, the fickle definitions of good and evil, and it brings up some pretty existential questions surrounding religion and the worship of deities. Deeply religious people may want to avoid reading this book as they could find some of the comparisons to real-world religions disturbing or distasteful. I’m not turned off by violence either, but as Cleansed has some pretty graphic depictions of blood, gore, and some heinous, despicable acts, those triggered by such should probably avoid it.

I think one saving grace, at least for the audio version of the book, was the performance of the narrator. The narrator has some talent, able to portray a very wide range of characters with unique voices, accents, and characterizations. As I’ve said before that sometimes a good narrator can save a bad book - and though I wouldn’t say that Cleansed is a bad book, the narration certainly kept me entertained enough to finish it despite my issues with the plot. I’d certainly recommend looking up other books with the same narrating and giving them a try.

Special thanks to Sean Duregger, who provided me with this book at my request.

Riveting!!!💜

So much destruction, so many deaths & so much despair, is it wrong that I totally enjoyed it? 😂🤷🏻‍♀️
Seriously, this story is a fantastic dark fantasy and a brilliant start to this trilogy. The characters are clever and the story is written so that even I could easily follow along.
Author, G.S. Scott will take you on a journey of waring Gods, Clans & families. It’s hard to know right from wrong and who to trust.
This story is brilliantly performed by Sean Duregger who absolutely gets these characters. He brings us all the emotions from humor to pure evil and even sings a few ballads. Well done!!
This is book 1 in a trilogy series and the adventure continues.
I highly recommend this book.

Sisters Spotlight 💜

Scott and duregger pulled off a great combo

This was a gripping gritty fantasy novel. When it come to the gods of order and chaos you always get a polarity in both characters and readers. Some are drawn to order and some to chaos. It is part of what makes the characters relatable. Their choices and how it affects their lives are things that pluck at our heart strings. The author and narrator combine here to bring us that choice and it’s affects on the MC and the world he inhabits. Found this to be a great story from two voices whose world and work I enjoyed very much. I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator or publisher

Intense

This was a dark, dystopian book with similarities between good vs evil as seen in the Bible. The people are drawn to the ways of Chaos only to find out he is the wrong deity. When the good god appears many people shun him and his purpose. I found there was so much happening I needed to keep flipping back the audio to grasp it all. Sean Dureggar was good in voicing the various male & female characters.

Cliffhanger!

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

The world in this book was well built but oh boy, the story was a doozy! There were a lot of amazing elements in this book. The author was not afraid to throw in some blood and gore as well as some romance. There were a few characters that I absolutely hated *cough Jacob* because of their personalities and there were some that I loved. This story ended in a cliffhanger which had me scowling. You can't just leave the book hanging on that note, author. You are a cruel cruel person!

Narration: it was good but I found some voices were very very similar. Towards the end, a character was introduced that had me thinking it was a previous character because of the inflection and the tone of the author. Overall, the pacing and control of the narrator was great and just the voices should have been more able to differentiate.

Nice Story Wonderful Performance

I'm not big on Fantasy stories, I have to say G.S. Scott has created a pretty cool world with loads going on. Picking sides with Gods can be tricky and messy busy. I'm a huge fan of Sean Duregger. He gets better and better with every audio book I listen too. You can tell he's a true fan of Audio Books and is defiantly owning his craft. I want Sean to read all the books now...lol. I'll continue to check out his performance and in doing so I'll continue to find to new books. I want to read more from G.S. Scott now. This would defiantly be worth your time to check this book out.

Dark but enjoyable fantasy

Dark but enjoyable. I cared about the main character. I thought the narrator did a good job with the characters' voices. Looking forward to the next one!