The Second

By: Prudence MacLeod

Narrated by: Karen Hawthorne

Oona, a slave beaten and tortured, is saved from certain death by a pirate queen. Nurtured and nursed back to health by Red Meera, Oona becomes the Second Queen of the Westermen, the largest fighting force in the known world.

When Meera falls near death from poison, Oona becomes First Queen. Will she use her newfound power to avenge herself on her former master? Indeed, she will - him and those who originally took her. The wrath of the Westermen is about to fall on the slave masters. There will be no mercy.

©2016, 2020 Prudence MacLeod (P)2021 Shadoe Publishing, LLC

A very enjoyable book.

Karen Hawthorne, you provided a wonderful performance.

I read hundreds of books a year. Paper books, Kindle, Nook, and listen to many audiobooks and the only thing I look for in any book is whether or not it was enjoyable for me. I read books across a wide range of categories and the only thing important to me is whether I enjoyed them.

In my opinion, Prudence MacLeod wrote a very enjoyable story. Everyone has different things they like and don’t like in the books they listen to or read and I am no different.

A little self-disclosure, I am a lesbian and I enjoy reading books with lesbian characters that don’t have a sex scene on every other page or a ton of sexual innuendos every time you turn a page. For there to be lesbians in the book is not a requirement but it is nice when they are present. This was the perfect book for that. I think this book represented a lesbian relationship wonderfully without cramming the fact down the throats of the readers. From the view of the characters in the book once Oona was made second to Meera it was clear to all that they were mated, paired or whatever name you want to use for a married couple. From that moment on they were not treated as anything other than a married couple. To me, having a same-sex couple being together and not treated any differently or written any differently by the author than a heterosexual couple was a wonderful thing to behold.

Another thing I enjoyed about this book is the fact that the author had very little written in the book about sex or sexual orientation. If you read any book aside from romance novels with heterosexuals you do not find a lot of discussion about sex or sexual orientation so why should it be any different in a book with two lesbian main characters? Just my opinion, it should not be any different. I don’t need there to be a discussion about the character’s sexual orientation to know what they want in bed when their actions speak for themselves. Very well done Prudence.

I like to be able to immerse myself into the world of the book and use my imagination. Many writers go overboard in their attempt to build the world the characters are in and describe the characters themselves in such detail that leaves the reader unable to use their imagination, this author thankfully did not do that.

It is a fictional fantasy book that lets the reader/listener use their imagination instead of the author filling our heads with a huge amount of descriptive text. Love it.

A feel-good fantasy with so much missed potential

The "Too Long/Did Not Read" spoiler free version of this review is basically this:

Perhaps it is because I have been reading mostly lengthy series' as of late that has turned my eye more critical, but I still found this book to over all be a cute and satisfying listen. It's a simple book that reads more like a bed-time story with likeable yet one dimensional characters, with overly simplified solutions to complex problems. The LGBTQ+ representation is there, but more like a loose scaffolding for what could have been something great. Fantasy elements are there as well, but in a way that seemed half thought out and less like it was there to enhance the story and more as if it was thrown together as a magical explanation to quickly solve and move on from what could have otherwise been more interesting conflicts. That being said; I still enjoyed it as a sweet and satisfying tale about a pair of strong respected women kicking ass across the ocean, that thankfully doesn't follow the "Revenge is bad, actually" rout that most plots circling around revenge tend to do.

Long version review:

Good things first:
The love between the two lead characters reads well, and you hold a fondness for them through the entire book.

The characters are likeable, straight forward, and the occasional banter will make you giggle.

While the story is predictable, it is handled in a way that works and brings a level of satisfaction that most books make you agonize through the majority of the book before hand. I would consider this is the major selling point of this book, as it was quite refreshing to, for once, NOT be faced with never ending twists and turns and make it to the end of a book battered and bruised feeling all sorts of emotions.

Most stories this size will have one story arc and leave it at that, but there is a momentum that carries the book naturally through three different, while fast paced arcs that can lead you to feeling able to read it all in one sitting.

Now for the bad:
The characters are quite one dimensional, and while I loath using this description for female characters, the two lead characters straddle that line of being considered "Mary Sue" as a result. Tying into that, was what I saw as an attempt in making Oona a more dynamic character that seemed like it was forgotten during the majority of writing. Right from the get-go (just before the sample audio actually) we find out that Oona's three children were killed in front of her. This is brought up only a handful of times in the entire book, and Oona hardly acts the way one would expect a newly childless mother to act. I would go so far to say that she almost acts as if it was a pet that had been killed, rather than all of her children.

There is little conflict through the story that is not Obvious Villain vs The Good Guys, with those conflicts finding resolution swiftly and fairly straight forward, which isn't a bad thing, just makes the story fall a little flat.

A handful of moments came up that really should have had foreshadowing, but instead just popped up seemingly at random and acted as a convenient last minute excuse for the events taking place.

The fantasy elements in the story were as such that they didn't play much part in the actual story. Their only purpose for existing seemed to have been 1. a one time explanation on how the world is post apocalyptic to the point of human evolution past a second ice age following nuclear war, and 2. To make the good guy's job easier at winning.

Many characters go undescribed for the most part. Beyond a description of hair, height, and occasionally eyes, you're not going to get much else in the ways of physical descriptions. Certain "evolved" humans with fantasy traits are barely described and you are left to your imagination as to what these characters actually look like beyond hair color, approximate height, and one other unique trait to their "species"

My biggest criticism of this story is actually about the LGBT representation. While this was written in 2011 in a time when LGBT rep. in books was fairly limited to the "gay tragedy/burry your gays" trope, and it would have been considered a positive change of pace and a bright warm fuzzy feeling you get from LGBT characters getting to live happily ever after. But looking at it through todays standards, it reads like the author knew about lesbians in theory, but doesn't quite see "lesbians" as being more than just "really close friends" So much so, that I would have been able to see this as AMAZING representation of an asexual lesbian relationship, if it weren't for the fact that throughout the book, the only mention of sex is when implying an act of rape, or for referring to heterosexual procreation. (small ending spoilers until end of paragraph) There is very little actual discussion or insight about the characters sexuality other than the two lead characters saying they "loath to sleep with a man" in the last chapter, and in the same chapter decide to each become pregnant by both of them having sex with the same man, while the most intimate they had been with each other had been cuddling and forehead kisses. (seriously they don't even share a full kiss until they are both pregnant and in the last sentence of the book)

As for the performance of Karen Hawthorne:

Reading this book rather than listening to it would have resulted in a different experience. Ms. Hawthorne has an amazingly sultry, soothing voice and calming cadence. However, there's not a lot of tone change from Ms. Hawthorne, but this is usually the fault of the director, rather than the voice actors'. Any time there was dialogue written to be shouted or yelled, it was instead read with the complete opposite energy, in the same calm smooth soothing tone and cadence of Ms. Hawthorne. This didn't make the experience better or worse depending on how you look at it, as the consistency of her beautiful voice is unarguably clear and calming, however listening will make you feel as if you are being tucked in and being quietly read a bedtime story.