Sanctum

Guards of the Shadowlands, Book 1

By: Sarah Fine

Narrated by: Amy McFadden

A week ago, 17-year-old Lela Santos’ best friend, Nadia, killed herself. Today, thanks to a farewell ritual gone awry, Lela is standing in paradise, looking upon a vast gated city in the distance - hell. No one willingly walks through the Suicide Gates, into a place smothered in darkness and infested with depraved creatures. But Lela isn’t just anyone - she’s determined to save her best friend’s soul, even if it means sacrificing her eternal afterlife.

As Lela struggles to find Nadia, she’s captured by the Guards, enormous, not-quite-human creatures that patrol the dark city’s endless streets. Their all-too-human leader, Malachi, is unlike them in every way except one: his deadly efficiency. When he meets Lela, Malachi forms his own plan: Get her out of the city, even if it means she must leave Nadia behind. Malachi knows something Lela doesn’t - the dark city isn’t the worst place Lela could end up, and he will stop at nothing to keep her from that fate.

©2012 Sarah Fine (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

For a younger audience, but an enjoyable story.

The characters are well designed and thought out. Much of the dialogue fits the age of the characters and is at time awkward for older audience's. Outside of that enjoyable and worth reading.

A great listen

Very well written and performed. A great listen. Couldn't put the book down. If you're looking for a great book with moderate violence, drama, and sex then this book is it. Written for a young audience, but great for any age.

Very entertaining. I loved the story line.

What made the experience of listening to Sanctum the most enjoyable?

The narrator was very good.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Sanctum?

How she never gave up no matter what she faced.

Which scene was your favorite?

The part where they went through the building. Without giving it away it scared me.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It did make me feel a lot of emotions.

Any additional comments?

I cannot wait for more from this author.

This book made me want to go straight to hell

When Lela's best friend Nadia kills herself, Lela sneaks through the Suicide Gates of hell, in an attempt to rescue Nadia, which is where she happens upon both brutal demons and the leather-clad, blade-wielding Guards of the Shadowlands. Everything just gets better. . . or perhaps I should say worse, from there.

Excellent writing and narration.

Enjoyable listen.

I was skeptical at first. This book is a little bit out of my genre. I'm usually more epic fantasy. I did end up liking the book quite a bit. I hate when narrators try to do accents though.

Good but not as good as I had expected

I'm going to go against the grain here and give this book 3 stars. In this case, 3 stars means that I loved some parts, didn't like other parts, but I liked the book overall. It wasn't that the book was bland or middling, but that I had some issues with it.

I'll start off with what I liked. 5 stars for sure for world-building here. Sarah Fine created a uniquely imaginative world that happened to make total sense. It was creepy, dark, and fabulously conceptualized. Her concept of the afterlife for suicide victims, the Shadowlands, was perfect. By far, the world was my favorite part of the book. I loved the concept of the Mazikin. Just brilliant, honestly. This book had some of the best world-building that I've ever seen in young adult paranormal.

Now for the parts that I had issues with. I've said it once and I'll say it again, audiobooks change the entire reading experience. So much is riding on the narrator and their interpretation of the characters. I loved when this narrator voiced Lela. She did a very nice job conveying Lela's emotions and fears. However, once the narrator attempted to narrate for Malachi, I was not a fan. First of all, Malachi sounded distinctly feminine, which really lessened his appeal greatly. He is supposed to be a very strong, macho Middle-Eastern man and the narrator sort of made it sound like a white girl doing a mock Arab accent (not cool). The narrator also sounded almost identical with her Middle Eastern accent for Malachi and her Hispanic accent for Anna. It was distracting for me and lead me to focus on the flaws of the characters.

I didn't love how Malachi and Lela were too perfect. They were both self-sacrificing to the point of incredulity. My least favorite character was Nadia, mostly because I just couldn't see why Lela would go to so much trouble for a girl who made no impact on me. I get why Lela was supposed to care about Nadia, I just didn't care about her and I wanted to shake Lela for giving up so much for her. I wanted to shout, "Nadia isn't worth it!"

Despite my issues, I think I will certainly move on to the next in the series. The world has too much potential for me to quit now. Perhaps in ebook form I'll like the story even more.

Struggled to get into the story...

Was a mixed bag of a book really, took some effort to listen and follow at the beginning. This was not helped by the narration.

But as the story developed I was able to move past my initial reluctance and become involved in the story.

Not sure that I will invest in the two sequels, as the end of book one ends perfectly nicely.

I loved this book!

I'm definitely not a teenager anymore, not for about 20-something years this book caught my interest. I think it came across my daily deal or something.

I loved it! I cruised through this book in a day and a half! I got a ton of manual work done those two days too. I kept looking for stuff to do just to give me a reason to keep my headphones in. I don't think you'll be disappointed. Can't wait to get the next book in this series.

One more thing, I was also given some very serious food for thought from this book. It may be classified as a teenagers book, but for me, the author hit on some very intense truths. I highly recommend it!

Awesome book

I loved this book. It was a different and exciting read. I don't normally read YA books because I hated high school and well don't really care to revisit my own memories brought on but reading what the characters are going through. This book was different though. It didn't feel like a YA at all. Which is a good thing since basically it pairs a 17 year old girl with a almost 80 year old guy. Though to be fair he looks 19 in the book. ( We should all be so lucky right. LOL ) Anyway the book has sort of Vampire/alien like characters an angel and so much more. WARNING : It does deal with suicide a lot. It's how the characters get where they are to begin with. It will pull on the old heart strings in places but it also offers hope and love. I highly recommend this book.

L.

Teen age angst

Would you try another book from Sarah Fine and/or Amy McFadden?

Probably not...

Would you be willing to try another book from Sarah Fine? Why or why not?

This was written with teenagers in mind. Some teen literature has seamlessly translated to adult fiction, but the lusting after, not ever learning and constant selfishness is just to traditional teen age literature.

What about Amy McFadden’s performance did you like?

She did well with what she had to work with.

Was Sanctum worth the listening time?

I thought about turning it off and go to another book....