Of Empires and Dust
The Bound and the Broken, Book 4
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3 Months Free
Buy Now for £22.43
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Narrated by:
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Derek Perkins
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By:
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Ryan Cahill
I'ldryr viel asatar. I sanvîr viel baralun.
In fire, we are forged. In blood, we are tempered.
In the Aravell woodland, Calen Bryer grapples with the fallout from the Battle of Aravell. The path forward is littered with choices that will bleed him dry. But he is a Draleid, he is a guardian, and he will always stand when others call. He will be the light they look to.
His sister, Ella, lies fragmented, her mind split between worlds, her fate unknown. But the blood of the wolf is strong.
Hundreds of miles away, in the western villages of Illyanara, Dahlen Virandr leads the defense of Salme and all its inhabitants gathered from across the region. The Uraks are unrelenting, and they know only blood and death. If this is to be his end, he will enter Achyron's Halls as a warrior who would not yield.
Below the mountains of Lodhar, Queen Kira waits in the dark while Hoffnar attempts to seize control of the Freehold and lead the dwarves towards a new dawn of war.
In Valtara, Dayne Ateres hunts those who betrayed his family, while Alina prepares her army to besiege the legendary Achyron's Keep.
At the edges of the Burnt Lands, Rist Havel is offered a new path forward, one that few have ever trodden, one that could forge him into a mage of no equal.
With the news that Ilkya and Jormun have fallen, along with their soulkin, Eltoar finds himself face-to-face with Salara Ithan—a remnant of his past life that he had long thought dead.
As the Blood Moon taints the sky, Kallinvar and the Knights of Achyron battle tirelessly against the Shadow, doing everything within their power to hold back the darkness.
Gods are waking.
The world is burning.
Ashes and dust are all that will remain.
©2025 Ryan Cahill (P)2025 Podium AudioDevastating.
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Excellent performance also by the narrator.
Epic
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I love this book
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Now the narrator. I have given that 2 stars. Honestly, that's me being generous. It is the same narrator from the previous books, however as there are alot more characters in this book, I realised this narrator is extremely poor. He can't cope with the new additions and doesn't understand the nuance of dialog.
I am a very understanding reader/listener and don't judge harshly, however I have to say, this is perhaps one of the worst narrated books I've heard in a very long time. The narrator only has 4 voices (i say voices at a stretch) really they are all different tones of the same voice. No change in accent, no change in mannerisms, just a different tone. so in 1 chapter you'll have Eltuar talking and he'll sound a certain way, In another chapter he will sound like someone else. Infact its worse than that, every character sounds the same. As in every chapter, every character has the same voice. which gets extremely confusing during conversations because you don't know who is speaking. I found myself rewinding 30s on so many occasions just to relisten. I lost count of how many times i had to do that just to make sense of what's going on. I know its not the authors fault but rather the narrator.
He finally decided to do an accent change in one of the later chapters (new characters from a different area are introduced briefly, I don't want to add spoilers) but the worst one was Caylan, in chapter 74 his voice changes from who he was talking to, to the other guy IN THE SAME BLOODY CONVERSATION!!! like seriously. Not in the same chapter, but in the same conversation!! he starts speaking like the other guy and the other guy starts speaking like him. it is absolute madness!
The editiors should have at least listened to the voice actor and told him to add variations in his voice. One of the points of an audiobook is to immerse the listener into the vision of the author more closely to the source material than the readers own imagination.
I have never been so disappointed with a narration before. I've heard bad narrations and dropped the book, this one was on my watch list and I listened through it all, but my goodness. I hope Ryan sees my review and decides to take a more active approach to the audio books. this was a diabolical performance. didn't do justice to the book at all.
In the earlier books, there were less characters and therefore it wasnt as obvious which is why I didn't complain before. like I said, I'm not a harsh critic. To be fair to the narrator, he has a good voice in telling stories. he's not monotonous and he does try. However the voice and conversations is something he needs to work on immensely.
If you can get past the narrators lack of skill, I would recommend this book. Overall 4 stars due to the narrator.
Great continuation of the story. Extremely poor narration
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awesome
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