Mélusine Audiobook By Katherine Addison cover art

Mélusine

The Doctrine of Labyrinths, Book 1

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Mélusine

By: Katherine Addison
Narrated by: Shawn K. Jain
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From an award-winning author, the first book in the spellbinding series, the Doctrine of Labyrinths

Welcome to Melusine, a city as wondrous as it is corrupt. Within its walls lies a stronghold of power and magic, a shining setting for the brilliant Felix Harrowgate. A well-respected wizard and darling of the court, Felix harbors sordid secrets from his peers in the aristocracy: a dark past in which a sadistic wizard enslaved him body and mind, even as he schooled Felix in how to walk among noblemen as if he were one of them. An abuser Felix believes himself free of, until a return to his former master's lair leads to his harrowing fall from grace.

Broken, lost, Felix finds an unlikely accomplice in Mildmay the Fox. Trained to be an assassin, surviving as a thief, Mildmay knows what it is to be hunted. When fate brings the weakened wizard and the wanted killer together, they escape Melusine, traveling through strange lands where they encounter peculiar magic and powerful demons. A world where shocking secrets will be laid bare—dark truths that will bind them together forever.

Contains mature themes.

©2005 Sarah Monette (P)2024 Tantor Fantasy Epic
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I didn’t finish the book yet, but there are some graphic rape descriptions, which surprised me because I’ve read all of Addisons other books and there was nothing like that, just a heads up if anyone wants to avoid that sort of stuff

Graphic descriptions of rape

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It's seemed to be a decent story, I really like author, but the reader had no inflection difference between description and dialogue, the pacing was wonky, didn't give headers enough space to realize POV had changed, he was apparently in a wrestling match to the death with all punctuation, and a handful of words were very badly mispronounced... but the mispronunciations were the least sin

The reader murdered it

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and it's true."

I discovered this book in a used book store years ago and decided to give it a try. I will admit that I didn't like the characters or the society they came from at first. I got tired of reading about how cruel so many of the people were and I disliked the constant arguments. But I kept going, and by the end of the book I cared enough about Mildmay and Felix that I just had to know what would happen next. It took some searching online, but I finally found a copy of the next book, which led me to the next, and the next. I now have hardcovers of Melusine, The Virtu, The Mirador, and Corambis, and I treasure them, I've read all four books multiple times, and I really do appreciate the growth shown by the characters from start to finish. It is a series about brotherhood and healing, and two damaged characters overcoming a very rough start in life to become better people in the end. I regularly check the Audible pages of my favorite authors, and when I stopped by Katherine Addison/Sarah Monette's page a few days ago I was absolutely thrilled to discover that Melusine had been released in audiobook format. I purchased it immediately and finished listening in two days flat.

I'll add to my review later on; for now I just want to say thank you for recording this book for Audible, and I will be keeping my fingers crossed that the rest of the series will follow.

"This is the best story I know about hocuses...

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There's "sad boy" protagonists, then there's "drug addicted former child prostitutes whose abusive rapist cursed them into doing a capital C Crime against their will after days of druggings and sexual abuse" protagonists. Absolutely ghastly. I tried just skipping those bits, but they weren't neatly marked on the audiobook so it was too much work. The other deuteragonist wasn't much better. And the narrator they got did *not* work for me. Overall, a fantastic dud. Only read this if you really want to get into the head of a SA survivor.

Ghastly

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I don’t know how little they are paying their voice actors to get someone this bad. I don’t fully trust my review of the story because of how hard it was to get into and follow with this voice actor.

Terrible Narration

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