Witches Steeped in Gold

By: Ciannon Smart

Narrated by: Nicola Lambo, Tamika Katon-Donegal

Length: 15 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

This Jamaican-inspired fantasy debut about two enemy witches who must enter into a deadly alliance to take down a common enemy has the twisted cat-and-mouse of Killing Eve with the richly imagined fantasy world of Furyborn and Ember in the Ashes.

Divided by their order. United by their vengeance.

Iraya has spent her life in a cell, but every day brings her closer to freedom - and vengeance.

Jazmyne is the queen’s daughter, but unlike her sister before her, she has no intention of dying to strengthen her mother’s power.

Sworn enemies, these two witches enter a precarious alliance to take down a mutual threat. But power is intoxicating, revenge is a bloody pursuit, and nothing is certain - except the lengths they will go to win this game.

"A thundering waterfall of magic, vengeance and intrigue." (Samantha Shannon, New York Times & Sunday Times best-selling author of The Priory of the Orange Tree and The Bone Season)

©2021 Ciannon Smart (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

Loved the story!

I loved the story, and the narration was pretty good, but one thing about it bothered me. The narrator assigned to the character “Ira” pronounced her full name (Iraya) 2 different ways. She sometimes said “ih-ray-uh,” and sometimes “ih-rye-uh.” She switched back and forth throughout the book, so it’s not like she learned part way through that she was pronouncing it wrong. And I tried to pay attention to which characters pronounced it which way, but it didn’t seem there was any correlation there either. Even Ira herself pronounced it differently. I couldn’t figure it out, and it bothered me the whole time.

Because of their thick accents, it was sometimes hard to understand the patois words and slang phrases, but this didn’t bother me much. It did impact my understanding of certain dialogue exchanges, but nothing major. It didn’t take away from my understanding of the story itself, and I appreciated the accents because it made the story feel more authentic. It’s just a warning to future listeners! Maybe have the physical copy of the book in front of you if you like to know all the small details and have a good understanding of little things like that.

Overall, I loved the book and the narration was great!

I really enjoyed this book.

I enjoyed the theme, the read and the story. I will look for more from this author.

Awesome

Awesome all the way around! Had to take notes to keep up with the details!

Island

Purchased because I desire more Caribbean literature and I generally like this genre. I did not find the story engaging. I'm Jamaican and this was just okay.

Kind of disappointed

I wanted the weak sniveling passive-aggressive power-hungry startled-mouse princess Jasmine to die. But the author put her in the next book. Obviously the author has no sense of justice, so I won’t be reading on.

I love the accent reading the book

I really enjoyed this book cant wait to read the next book in the series.

Great listen

I know that some reviewers had talked about the lack of romance in the book, but it's really refreshing to read a book that focuses on the characters and how they develop without bringing sex into things.

I love how Jasmine and Iraya developed in the book. You can see how the characters transformed from being timid to their own person.

This was a really exciting read and an easy listen.

OMG.. THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING 🤩

I made sure to take my time with this book so that I could thoroughly enjoy it and enjoy it I did‼️

Amazing listen and read

I read the book first then listened to it. I loved it both times. The story. The readers. The magic. The ritual. Everything 🤌🏾🤌🏾🤌🏾

Fun fantasy, unlikable characters

It’s always hard to listen to a book, get to the end, and realize you aren’t rooting for any of the main players the way you did when the story began. Exciting fantasy, lots of world-building, good narration, disappointing leads.