Hounds of God

Cursed Night, Book 1

By: Justin Sloan

Narrated by: Alisha Bade

Torn from her parents at a young age, Katherine is raised in a pack of werewolves like herself and brought into the ways of the Hounds of God, an army of werewolves that will bring justice to evildoers.

But when their leader is killed and everything Katherine has believed is thrown on its head, she sets off with a small group of friends in search of a cure to what she now believes is a curse.

This search for a cure leads her to a fight for survival where she's challenged to embrace the beast within. Will she give up everything to stop the nefarious army of werewolves, betraying those she once considered family?

Fans of Patricia Briggs' Alpha and Omega books, or anyone who likes shifters, will fall in love with this story.

©2016 Justin Sloan (P)2017 Justin Sloan

hounds of god

Hounds of dogs. Katrine thinks she killed her parents and left to find with Danny. Then she got hunted by a hunter. Then she met Tristan and Mauro. Danny changed. But in the end they fight together. Beautiful story. Nice narrated.

A cool action urban fantasy

I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audio book by the author, narrator or publisher.

it was pretty good, after the short of xmas night, this was pretty interesting since you know a little background for Kath and all, it had a lots of twists this one that were very welcomed.

the narrator voice was nice too, I could feel the emotions surging within her voice.

the plot and premise of the book is pretty cool they have werewolfs, vampires, humas trying to help but something I noticed was the little cameos here and there, they were fun, lol Nora roberts, and that did make it pretty enjoyable for me actually that they were on a quest of their own but since they were teenagers and such they didnt knew that much of the world but were learning fast.

a delectable reading and hearing.

The book was great and the audiobook even better.

A great audiobook. I loved to listen to the narrator who brought this book to life while listening. I really enjoyed Cat, there is never enough female lead. I received this audiobook for free and voluntarily reviewed.

Interesting Story

I found this a interesting story with a different twist to werewolves start. Not sure if I will continue to follow this series, like the story but not sure if I liked it enough to continue to follow it through.

Great book update

By Tammy "I am an avid reader and reviewer. I enjoy listening to audiobooks ." | March 21, 2017

I found the plot line entertaining with the notion of a half werewolf interesting. If the next in the series is anything like this one, it should be a good read.
Thanks

UPDATE: I was gifted this audio ARC from the author for a honest and unbiased review.

Hound of God

love this book! Every bit of it....the story, the reader....listened to it twice!!! Hope there is another book to make a series....yes?

Might come back for more.

Would you consider the audio edition of Hounds of God to be better than the print version?

I didn't read the print version, but Alisha Bade really makes it interesting.

What other book might you compare Hounds of God to and why?

I don't know that I can really compare it to anything else I've read.

Have you listened to any of Alisha Bade’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I love Alisha's performances, and she actually made this book more enjoyable!

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes. But unfortunately being a parent, I can't really do much of anything in one sitting!

Any additional comments?

I was voluntarily provided this review copy audiobook at no charge by the author, publisher and/or narrator for an honest review.

Great Story

I truly enjoyed listening this book. Justin Sloan did a great job with the story and Alisha Blade did a great job giving the characters a voice. I highly recommend this book, you won't be disappointed.

Slow down and take a breath.

Any additional comments?

First things first, this book claims to be Whisper-synched enabled, but that does not appear to be the case, at least not for me. I purchased the ebook format of the book day 1 (well actually I believe I had it preordered) so perhaps an update came out later and I never updated my copy, but the text of the ebook and the narration delivered in this audio format to not match. In some areas there is alternate phrases (no big deal) in others there are entire sections that are missing in the ebook version I have. As I said, perhaps I merely have an older version of the ebook. I noticed this when I was listening and something caught my attention and I wanted to double check I'd heard it correctly, but when I checked out the text version I saw the part I'd just listened to happened to be missing. So as I continued listening, from time to time I 'read' along with the audio book and noticed this happened repeatedly, mostly with sections that happened to be scenes centered around the character Hunter. And as I said this made me think the ebook I had was just the initial release and that perhaps Mr. Sloan had updated the file before having the audio version done, as the missing sections from the ebook all seem to focus on that one character and perhaps were an attempt to flesh out the character some more.

One section that was in the ebook that was not in the audio version, however, was the author's note, which I read after listening to the audio version, and I will say it did shed some light on things. Mr. Sloan explains that he originally envisioned this story as a screenplay, and IMO that explains quite a bit to me.

Here's my main problem with the book. Too much action. I know you are probably scripting your head. Action is a bad thing? No, usually not, but action just for the sake of action is. Almost nothing is explained. It's just one action scene after another. Without any downtime you never get to know the characters, their motivation. If you don't get to know them, then you really don't care what happens to them. A scene is much more existing, impactful when you actually care about the characters. People got killed and I was like, oh well, didn't really know anything about him anyway. And there were some characters (Hunter in particular) where serious information about them isn't even told until 80% of the way through the book and it's given as a 'oh by the way, this guy also happens to be *spoiler*' where knowing the information about him earlier would have made a major difference. The character's motivation still wasn't explained fully, but it would have made more sense. Making sense is another issue. As I said (complained) you don't get the to know many of the characters all that well, and yet many of them still end up acting in ways that make absolutely no sense given what little you do know about them.

Does this sound harsh? I don't mean it to. As I said, it's a similar complaint I had to some of Mr. Sloan's other work. I have zero doubt that he has a killer story in his head, but for some reason he doesn't share all of it with us. Just because he knows the motivation/past incidents/relationships, doesn't mean we as readers/listers do. We don't have all the backstory in our heads like he does and unless he shares it with us we never will. I appreciate that desire to keep the action flowing, but there is nothing wrong with some downtime. He said he started it as a screenplay, I would ask Mr. Sloan to go rewatch some of his favorite action/adventure movies and really study them. I'm quite sure he'd see that none of them are all action scenes. Slow down, take a breath, and give us some of the backstory/character development/world knowledge that you know. You know these characters backward and forward, you know the world better than any of us. Share some of that. It's obvious he's passionate about these characters and their stories, I'd just like for him to share some knowledge that goes with that passion. I actually think Mr. Sloan can write fairly well and have many of his books, including the sequel to this one, and I will continue to support and read his work. I'd just like to see him to his work to the next level. (just one man's opinion of course)

As for Ms. Bade, I would say 80-85% or so of her delivery was perfectly acceptable, but 15-20% of it absolutely drove me nuts. There is a character in the first third or so of the book, Babur. It seemed to me that she never pronounced the name the same way twice in a row. In fact when I first heard the different pronunciations I almost thought there were multiple characters with almost the same names. And then in the last third of the book there is a character named Mauro. Every time she said this name she seemed to change the inflection in her voice, making sure to make it sound heavily accepted. It reminded me of when the local news person says some spanish word and tries to sound 'authentic' It was quit jarring and only makes you notice it even more. The last part that drove me nuts were the two or three Hunter centric sections. These were short stretches where you are main with the character Hunter, who ironically enough is hunting our main character. During these stretches she delivers the entire reading in some odd sinister voice. I appreciate a narrator bringing a character's dialogue to live through inflection/ vocal modulation and had she only delivered his voice in the 'sinister' tone she does that would be fine, but she delivers everything in these sections in a odd Bela Lugosi/ Vincent Price type voice, doing her best to sound sinister, as if she is trying to make sure we understand this is a 'and' guy and we should fear him. Totally pulled me out of the story. As I said, the majority of her narration was quite good (would have rated her much higher if the entire delivery had been consistent), but those parts were would to drive me up a wall.


Full disclosure I received a copy of this audio book from the author, but as I am sure you can tell that in no way influenced my review.

Hounds of God

Any additional comments?

A different take on werewolves as it is a series so much in the first book is giving you the details of the story background. It is an enjoyable audiobook.