Wheel of Fire

The Jasmine Wars, Book 1

By: Daniel Jeffries

Narrated by: Leanne Yau

Experience the beginning of the epic saga of family, love, and war.

Across a century of chaos and upheaval, follow three generations of heroes who will change the face of China forever.

A young boy on the run from the Communists that murdered his family must survive in the harsh Tibetan wilderness.

A grandmother and leader of the Underground Railroad must face her dark past as a young revolutionary.

A brilliant but brash colonel races to uncover a shadowy conspiracy that threatens to tear the new republic apart.

When a Jasmine Revolution sweeps away the brutal Communist regime, China transforms into the world's first AI-driven Direct Democracy, ushering in a golden age of peace and prosperity. From the earliest days of revolutionary fervor to the turbulence of war and rebellion, the powerful Zhang family is at the center of the storm. Now when protests and terrorism bring ultra-nationalism storming back, the nation's favorite son, Colonel Ju-Long, must uncover the traitors in his midst before his beloved country explodes into another civil war.

But will long-buried family secrets mean it's already too late?

©2016 Daniel Jeffries (P)2017 Daniel Jeffries

-ves: Narration, Foreign setting, time jumps

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

First and foremost, narration speed needs to be slowed down quite a bit. I usually listen at 1.5x. That was totally impossible with this book. Even at .75x, I had difficulty following the narration. I had to pause and rewind so many times that I finally quit.

Compound that with so many foreign words and setting. Imo the author should've spent some more time in describing the Chinese artifacts / settings used in the story, to make the reader more familiar with them.

And the back and forth time jumps didn't help. On their own they would've been fine. But when it gets combined with the other two issues I mentioned above, listening to the book becomes more of a headache than an entertainment.

Any additional comments?

I voluntarily received a free copy of this book from the author / narrator / publisher and am leaving an unbiased review.

Must be a speed listener!

Would you listen to Wheel of Fire again? Why?

No the narrator talks so fast that you almost cannot hear what she is said.

What did you like best about this story?

I might have liked the story if I could have understood the narrator.

Would you be willing to try another one of Leanne Yau’s performances?

No If she is the narrator she is too hard to understand. Listen to any book narrated by her before you purchase.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

When the mother dies I think.

Any additional comments?

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

WOW

If you could sum up Wheel of Fire in three words, what would they be?

Captivating, interesting, overwhelming.

What did you like best about this story?

The action, the setting, it just all worked well together.

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

This is my first experience with Leanne, I really enjoyed her.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I don't like answering this question, it offers too many spoilers.

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.

good story, the narrator kept me busy though

I will start with I was given this audio book in exchange for an unbiased review. The good;
the story was interesting, the characters well developed with suitable back stories, relatable emotions, and neat tech concepts.
The cons; there were lots of Chinese phrases interspersed some without explanation, the clipped narration kept me from becoming fully engrossed, the speaker had excellent diction and probably a great native speaker in Chinese, but I sometimes made me loose track of the character.

Could not finish

I received a free book code for this audiobook via Book Boom for my honest review.

In my rating choice, I had to select a rating as well for Overall and Story in order to leave my comment here on step 3, so I chose middle ground with 3 stars for those choices which is truly unfair to the author since I just could not finish. I've tried several times over the past 3/4 year to continue this book without succeeding. The narrator's cadence was simply too irritating to try and follow. Not her voice, but her rhythm. Tap your finger on the table quickly to the count of 3, then pause and repeat, that will give you an idea of the narration rhythm. She would speak fast, then slow, then loud and then a mumbled whisper, with the slow being a rather quick slow if that makes sense. I thought maybe it was the way she read this book, but after checking samples of other books Yau narrated they're much the same, some less so. I will look to the written form of this book to finish.

Wheel of Fire: The Jasmine Wars

“This audiobook was given by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review "
I like the epic, the saga, a story with depth and length. I found that in this story. I also like enough action to carry me into the next page, that often was lacking in this story. This was narrated well, and overall a good listen, it just didn't draw me into the story. I am about to start book two. I'll give a review on it soon.

Wheel of fire

Any additional comments?

Vivid descriptions abound. Setting of China takes a while to get used to it. It is a good book worth listening to.

Fatal flaw with reverb effect

I’m not sure what this book is trying to be. It’s a dystopian future sci-fi novel set in China, which made me very hopeful. There are several time periods, and the story jumps back and forth to tell the story. Is the author saying totalitarianism is bad? That communism is evil? That all forms of government are the same, and equally bad? All good ideas to explore, but it felt all over the map thematically. The book is well written, but the most interesting characters showed up in the epilogue. Audiobook: The voice artist is very talented, but the experience suffers from a fatal flaw – all internal dialogue uses a reverb effect, as do all political speeches and anytime a character speaks on an electronic device. The effect was painful. It took me out of the story every time. The only time effect worked was when two characters spoke at the same time. This must have been time consuming to produce, so it’s too late to go back and re-record. I am begging the producer: Please, never ever use this effect again. It made me want to give the book one star, but the voice artist and author deserve a better rating. I received this book free through Audiobook Boom.

I couldn't stand the narration

This is a dystopia set in China. The story switches from the year 2086 and 2174, and it is mostly about the political changes that happened in 2136, when the country switched from Communism to Democracy. The story focuses on the family of a boy who survived during the hard Communism years, when his parents and brothers were killed by the government, and which will be key in the future years of Democracy. China becomes a world power regarding AI and technological advances, but there is a hoard of nationalists which will put this peaceful and prosper situation in danger.

This book seemed so interesting that I was looking forward to listen to it. But I have to say that I struggled so much to finish it that I am not sure the effort was worth it. It is not an easy book to follow, not really due to the time shifts or the many characters with Chinese names, but due to how little information we get about them. The listener is thrown dozens of character's names with little explanation or background. I had to keep a list to be able to follow the flow, and even like that it was a challenge.

One of the worst issues with this book is the narration. Leanne Yau reads fast, without much pause and little inflection. I tend to listen to books at more than 1X speed to prevent my mind from wandering, but here even at 1X I had the feeling I was missing things. Apart from fast and having a heavy Asian accent, Yau has a very clipped speech. To make things worse, the audio production was subpar. There is some background noise all the time, and this coupled with the clipped speech made impossible to listen to the book in noisy environments. The great things about audiobooks is the possibility they bring to multitask, but with this one it was difficult. I had to pause it while on the metro because I was not able to hear everything correctly. I noticed some little reverb on the narration, which makes me think that Yau's narration booth needs some improvement. She used some echo effect to express characters' thoughts that was way to overdone and broke the rhythm of the story. There were also some important differences in volume, sibilances and pop sounds.

I liked the idea of having a narrator of Asian origin to set the atmosphere like with The Burn Zone, but this time it did not work. I wish the best to Leanne Yau, but I would recommend her to invest on improving her performance, booth, and technical skills.

I got quite upset about this book. This was the kind of story that I most enjoy, and within one of my favorite genre. It also felt quite original and I was ready to enjoy the ride. But, for the life of me, I couldn't. It makes me quite sad, because I would like to continue this series but I do not have the time to read regular books nowadays, but I just can't stand how this narration was done. If another audio edition gets released in the future I will definitely go for it.

I received a copy of this book in audio format from the narrator in exchange for an honest review.

Takes time to get into, but worth it

The book takes a few chapters to get into, but once I was I was hooked. I reread the book once more because I enjoyed it so much.