Black coffee and bitter almonds..

This one was hard work. I didn't realise it was going to be so DARK! Not until the headless men started walking around... I'm sort of surprised she managed a happy ending, not sure she should have done, but it works. I'd say this comes somewhere between the sheer delight of A Civil Campaign and the WTF(?) of Ceteganda.

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Great tale, slightly disappointing narration

What didn’t you like about Marguerite Gavin’s performance?

Strange pronunciation of words such as 'misled' (myzled), and a mushy accent that makes it difficult to tell the difference between words like 'gods' and 'guards' made it a distracting narration. Disappointing as compared to the narration of the previous Chalion novel, Paladin of Souls.

Did The Hallowed Hunt inspire you to do anything?

Not listen to any books narrated by Marguerite Gavin again..

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1 person found this helpful

Loved this story

Really enjoyed this in the series - heard the Penric stories first. Good twists along the way...

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Take a walk in conflicted hero shoes..well-written

One of my greatest pleasures in life is loosing myself in a beautifully and well-written fantasy book, that will steal your entire attention. Bujold’s writing has this effect on me. She delivers a great story wrapped in a ‘quality paper’.

The story itself takes you into this new magic and mysterious world where you follow Lord Ingrey’s both blessed and cursed faith. Although the book is not as fast-paced as some others in the series, it explores the intentions and conflict inside the main characters and keeps the intrigue and tension till the last pages.

Marguerite Gavin does a good job with the narration. She provides an enjoyable experience all the way from start to finish.

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A good story, well read.

Although set in the same world as the other Chalion novels this is in a different area, with no shared characters, so not exactly a sequel.
It is however still very strong and full of enjoyable characters and memorable events, well worth spending time with if you enjoyed the others.

The reading is average. Not as good as it's predecessors but not bad enough to interfere with the story.

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A fabulous book

I cannot say how much I love the book, with its ingenious world-building, well-portrayed and lovable MCs, intense chemistry and gripping plot. In my eyes it is even better than Paladin of Souls. Fans of the earlier Chalion books will love it, I think, so long as they do not expect it to be a part of a trilogy.
The narration is quite fine, and I particular like the voices picked for the central characters, although every time I would find the chapter numbers (along with the beginnings of the first sentence perhaps) are recorded in a slightly odd way.

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Wonderous and weird

This book was so amazing. Bujold has invented a religion which is quite comprehensive and this installment in the 5-Gods world shows us more of how it works. The denouement is quite moving.

I was not overly fond of the narrators delivery and the male voices didn't work for me. They all seemed quite expressionless because of her effort to keep the pitch low as a man's voice would sound. The female voices were all easily distinguishable.

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Enjoyable

The first book of the Chalion series is one of my favourite books. I also much enjoyed my recent reread of the second book. This - the third that was written I had completely forgotten. I certainly enjoyed it but it is far from the best of the series. I am struggling to put my finger on why that is but I think it is because there is a bit too much telling rather than showing. And Ingrey doesn't have the same charm as a character as the leads in the first 2 series. So don't start here - read the others first.

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not much action, narrator mistakes.

The story itself is OK, but doesn't have a lot of action. The narrator mispronounces words (DEBacle) and doesn't have much range for different voices for the characters. Phrasing is odd, with misplaced emphasis within sentences. I often found myself mentally rephrasing the sentence in my mind, because it didn't make sense as read.

I'm trying to listen to the Chalion series in order, so this is the first one. I have read these all myself, years ago, in print, but as I get older, I struggle with small print size, and I appreciate having someone else read them aloud. However, the narrator in this case detracted from an otherwise OK story.

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Not her best

I was very excited at the prospect of a new Bujold novel, but slightly disappointed when I read it. It's not bad exactly - I'm not sure that Bujold is capable of writing a bad novel - it's just rather slow. It also feels like a bit of a rehash of the themes of some of her earlier novels.

So if you're new to Bujold I'd advise you not to start here. Try the first of her fantasy novels (The Curse of Chalion), or one of her scifi Vorkosigan novels (I'd recommend starting with Warrior's Apprentice).

If you've read every other Bujold novel then clearly you'll be desperate to read this, but prepare for mild disappointment. On the upside, her next novel (The Sharing Knife Volume 1 - not available on Audible at the time of writing this review) is a lovely read, so it's not as though she's lost her mojo for good.

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3 people found this helpful