Novan Witch

By: Prudence MacLeod

Narrated by: Kristin Bentley

It was such an odd thing to most people. Arlessa, the most powerful witch in generations, High Priestess of the Borelian Temple, was in hiding, serving on the battlefield as a healer/dispatcher. They did not know, could not know, that for Arlessa to return to the Temple would mean spending the rest of her life in a marriage she did not want or in a prison from which there would be no escape.

Those who hunted her did not know, could not know, she intended to return, but in her own time and on her own terms. When that day arrived they would face a power they did not dream existed, a power that would tear apart their carefully constructed society. The Black Witch of Nova would come, and their world would fall.

©2015 Shadoe Publishing (P)2020 Shadoe Publishing

Not bad

The story was not confusing, I could follow it and the characters.
The story teller was a little choppy at first but seemed to smooth out with in the first chapter. I enjoyed when she did the male character voices. In the end the story teller still had me engaged into the story. I typically don't read science fiction.

Enjoyable story

This was a tough one for me to listen to and review. I re-started it a few times and ended up finishing it at 1.5x playback speed. Here's why I enjoyed it: The main character was a lesbian - I don't typically read stories where the main romance plotline is F/F so this was a first for me (there were M/F romance plotlines as well). I also liked the way the main character was written. I enjoy these kinds of heroines. I also liked the aspects of humour in some of the dialogue - those conversations were written well, I thought. Finally, I liked the characters - I could easily see how every single one of the characters could potentially have a story arc of their own.

One reason why I didn't give it more stars was because there wasn't much tension when it came to the romances. It was pretty much insta-love, followed by separation and insta-love reunions. Also, the romance scenes were not very steamy - it was almost Disney movie level romance. A bit of dissonance there, since we definitely got the impression that there was physical attraction among the romantic pairings in the story (when it came to actual 'action'? well, there wasn't much heat. Anyway, I think I would have enjoyed maybe just a wee bit more heat and passion, to make the insta-love more credible. The main reason why I didn't give the story more stars, though, is because the story was good, but I think it could have been better. More tension, more character development, more build-up, more challenges or obstacles for the characters, maybe some light interpersonal conflict, maybe some good guys who had shades of grey in their personality or moral code. It looks like this will be a series and a part of me is interested to see what comes next in the storyline and emerging/future relationships.

I confess, the narration made this a challenging audiobook to finish. I don't quite know how to describe it. The tone of the narration was good, the pronunciations were all fine, the pacing was good, too. And I've been known to gripe about how some narrators do a butcher job with other-gender dialogue scenes (ultra fake sounding falsettos or bass voices for other-gender characters) - the narrator didn't do a hatchet job with the male voices in this story, which was good. But... at the same time, it was one of THE MOST stilted and wooden narration that I've heard in a long time (I've listened to hundreds of audiobooks over the years). It had me scratching my head, it's like it was almost like it was narrated by an AI-like voice (Siri or Alexa). I couldn't find a playback speed that made the narration appealing to me. And worse (for me), was that the narration undermined the otherwise enjoyable dialogue, it undermined my engagement with the story.

Other reviewers gave this audiobook much higher ratings, so take my review with a grain of salt. I saw a lot of potential here, so I can understand the more positive reviews.

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