Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • The Gates of Sleep

  • Elemental Masters
  • By: Mercedes Lackey
  • Narrated by: Kayla Fell
  • Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
  • 3.8 out of 5 stars (18 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
The Gates of Sleep cover art

The Gates of Sleep

By: Mercedes Lackey
Narrated by: Kayla Fell
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £19.00

Buy Now for £19.00

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Fire Rose cover art
Owlflight cover art
Lady Helena Investigates: Book One of the Scott-De Quincy Mysteries cover art
The Lark and the Wren cover art
Lady Lightfingers cover art
Exile’s Honor cover art
Alpha and Omega cover art
Brave New Earl cover art
Lottie: Bride of Delaware cover art
A Flower in Season cover art
Wicked cover art
First Truth cover art
Taliesin cover art
The Broken Ones cover art
Succubus Christmas Special cover art
Whiskey Beach cover art

Summary

In the tradition of her acclaimed fairy-tale-inspired novel, The Serpent's Shadow, best-selling author Mercedes Lackey re-imagines Sleeping Beauty-as a dark and enchanting Edwardian fantasy. Marina is the cherished daughter of the wealthy Roeswood family, practioners of Elemental Magic. But evil portents have warned her parents that Marina will be killed before her 18th birthday-by the hand of her own aunt.
©2003 Mercedes Lackey (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

More from the same

What listeners say about The Gates of Sleep

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    6
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

A delightful fantasy

This kept me happily amused, as the arts and crafts background is fun, the Sleeping Beauty parallels don't make the plot too obvious and the narrators voice is plesant and well paced.
There were a lot of 'retakes' left in, so that you heard the sentance read incorrectly, then a pause followed by the corrected version. There were also a lot of words pronounced in a non-standard way- 'sere' as 'sir', 'mulish'as 'mullish', as if no-one had bothered to check the recording before they published it.
This was odd, but didn't really stop me enjoying the suspense or the romance and I'll probably buy the rest of this series.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

What was wrong?

I tried very hard with this book, but it fell short of the the previous book for me. I wonder if it was the book or myself? But I would recommend that all the reviews are read and the preview listened to several times. I will keep an open mind with the next in the series, but will take my own advice and listen to the preview a couple of times before I take any action.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Awfully slow

I quite enjoyed the first book but this fantasy based on sleeping beauty was quite dreadful.

Firstly, I didn't like the narrator, emphasis was frequently in the wrong place as though she didn't understand what she was reading and some of the pronunciations and accents were eccentric at best.

Secondly, the pacing was slow. Four hours in nothing has happened until you get to chapter 9, and what I was expecting to be a fantasy devolved into a virtue signalling exposition of social history. YAWN!!

Thirdly, characterisation. Marina was a whining child in a time a girl of her age would be expected to be an adult. I couldn't stand her and had zero sympathy, which is a tremendous fail in a heroine.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Bad narration with no evidence of editing!

Terrible pronunciation, it's not the narrators fault, this book should have been edited. For example the pronunciation of 'gaol' as 'gayowel' (phonetic sound), is just one small example of a teeth gratingly awful listen. Not helped as this is a dull story, laboured, and wandering. So bad, I couldn’t finish it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!