samantha shannon the priory of the orange tree

But it turns out the world is a whole lot more complex than that. At first, it seemed she had committed the (to my thinking) sin of making all dragons evil. Blessedly, there is very little to none of that in this book! Samantha Shannon has built a wonderful world here with deep, rich history (not all of which is known or true), complicated political atmospheres, fascinating mythology, and some startling revelations. Just describe them and let me draw my own conclusion. I don't need twelve minutes of exposition to explain the context behind the events you're about to describe. And I love it! One of my biggest complaints about so many fantasy novels is the over explaining. She varies her pace to be a reflection of the events she's describing, which provides an excellent tempo throughout the book, and her vocal inflections are damn near perfect! Now, as the story begins there is a bit of a learning curve as we're dropped right in the middle of several different characters in different places doing different things and it does take a bit of time to acclimate to the nuances of each character and location. She has impressive vocal range, giving us a wonderful assortment of voices, and even her male voices are widely varied and sound amazing! Her skill with accents is likewise incredible. I've never listened to an audiobook read by Liyah Summers before, and after hearing this I can't understand why! She is absolutely one of the top talents in the business.

If you thought Brandon Sanderson had a corner on standalone epic fantasy then you're in for a surprise with this one! As usual, let me start with the narrator.

Samantha shannon the priory of the orange tree