Shadowplay

Spellmonger: Legacy and Secrets, Book 1

De: Terry Mancour, Emily Burch Harris

Narrado por: Fiona Hardingham

From the world of Spellmonger...blessed darkness conceal her!

Born into a mysterious family, Gatina always knew there was something special about those around her. But when the duke and duchess of Alshar - close friends of her family - are brutally assassinated, her idyllic countryside life is upended by secrets emerging from the shadows.

The family she knew proved to be more than mere Alshari Coastlords and occasional magi, as she once believed. For centuries, her ancient and distinguished House has been secretly both Shadowmagi and highly skilled thieves. With a devious count seeking to capitalize on the assassination, the future stability and peace of Alshar hinges on Gatina learning both arts.

Slavery and piracy loom malevolently in the distance as the Count allies himself with a merciless criminal organization to seize power.

Gatina’s House has vowed to stand against the rising tide of wickedness - no matter how hopeless the task may seem. Working in secret beneath the tutelage of an enigmatic and mysterious master, Gatina finds herself disguised as a street orphan. She runs the filthy gutters of Falas as she puts her training into practice amid the dismal reality of its most destitute neighborhoods.

Brutal thugs, violent riots, cunning soldiers, and the constant threat of discovery by the Count and his allies, all put Gatina’s life at risk as she struggles in secret against the rising tyrant.

For as the blessed darkness conceals her movements by night, she and the Brotherhood engage in a clandestine struggle, something much more deadly than mere...shadowplay.

©2021 Terry Mancour (P)2021 Podium Audio

Why change the pronunciation of key words?

Everything about it is great except for the changes in pronunciation for the city and other few small things, but it did kinda felt wrong every time...

Great book as a stand-alone or part of the main series

You could listen to this book without having read a single book in the spellmonger series and get sucked right in. It’s a great story with a ton of details and tie backs to the main series. Unlike the cadet branch (hawkmaiden) it really fits in with the main series without being childish despite having a child as the main character. It left me excited for a sequel!

Met Minalan at Dragoncon 2021

I’ve read the entire series (Footwizard and Shadowplay only once as of this moment) TWICE now. I wanted to give the performance only 4 stars because it is SO DIFFERENT from the main narrator. She gets FIVE for ingenuity, persistence, and skillz.

This is the best World for books!

Spellmonger books forever! Also the Narrator is absolutely incredible. Her versatility is unreal, and enunciation is incredible and clear

He does it again!

Awesome all around book. I love that we are getting a better look into the shadow mages. I can't wait until they start to intertwine with the original series.

Great story that fills out the spellmonger series

I love the story, my only gripe was in the narration. There were times when pronunciations of some words that would be messed up. There was one spot where the same character said the same name twice in one sentence and it was different each time. That could have been fixed with another take. There are some canon words that were pronounced completely wrong, but I'm willing to count that as the main character's voice and pronunciation, at least that's what I tell myself to not let it bother me. All in all the book was an enjoyable addition to the spellmonger world.

Excellent book

I like all of the Spellmonger series. This seemed a little short, ended sooner than I wanted . Do not take that as a bad thing. It's more along the lines of getting caught up with the storyline and not realizing how far along I am.
Hopefully there will be a couple more books, similar to the Hawkmaiden series.
Narrator was excellent! You know a narrator is good when you don't notice their gender, meaning they can describe a scene or relay dialogue that allows you to get wrapped up in what is going on and not being distracted the person telling the story with their delivery being out of place. The story becomes the central focus and a skilled narrator becomes almost invisible as it were.
All of the narrators for the Spellmonger series are incredibly skilled, unfortunately for other narrators this is the bar I've set my standard to.
I have had the recent misfortune of starting another author's fantasy series where there are dual narrators doing different chapters. The female narrator was rather good. However the male narrator had every person sound like a pompous jerk, voiced by very bad (not evil, just poorly done) Disney villian .

Love the story but wish the performer had listen to John Lise performances prior to recording

I love the story of Gattina and her first adventures in shadow magery. I love the development of her story A great addition to Calidore and its stories. however the performer who read the narration for who read the book never listened to John Lee’s award winning performances. she pronounces all the proper nouns incorrectly. Ok … not all of them but a lot of them and it’s slightly annoying she did a phenomenal job of everything overall but she didn’t do her homework it’s slightly bothersome but all in all I love love Calidore and all of it stories and Terry Mancour did a great job

Yay! More Spellmonger!

Great story, loved getting more background on Gatina and Atopol and their family. I think Fiona Hardingham did a good job voicing the characters, although I wish she had looked up how to pronounce names from previous books. It was very jarring hearing words like "magocracy", "irionite", "Mandros", and "Thinradel" butchered over and over again. That aside, definitely worth a listen. If you're new to the Spellmongerverse definitely go check out the rest of the series.

Slow on the front, but picks up

The early part of the book is a little slow, but that might be because I already have an understanding of the characters. I would probably let my niece read this book though, and the story does pick up. The character development is well within the scope that I have come to expect from Terry Mancour, and it is nice seeing the puzzle come together. I am looking forward to the next book, when the kitten gets more in touch with her magical ability.