A Far Better Thing

By: H. G. Parry

Narrated by: Nathaniel Priestley

“Narrator Priestley excels at voicing Carton's interiority.” — AudioFile

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell meets A Tale of Two Cities in H. G. Parry’s A Far Better Thing, a heart-rending fantasy of faery revenge set during the French Revolution.

Most Anticipated SSF Books 2025—The Nerd Daily, BookPage

I feared this was the best of times; I hoped it could not get any worse.

The faeries stole Sydney Carton as a child, and made him a mortal servant of the Faery Realm. Now, he has a rare opportunity for revenge against the fae and Charles Darnay, the changeling left in his stead.

It will take magic and cunning—cold iron and Realm silver—to hide his intentions from humans and fae and bring his plans to fruition.

Shuttling between London and Paris during the Reign of Terror, generations of violence-begetting-violence lead him to a heartbreaking choice in the shadow of the guillotine.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books.

A nice fantasy reboot of my favorite novel

A retooling of A Tale of Two Cities, this book adds fantasy elements without going overboard. It focuses on the life, trials, and loves of Sidney Carton, who finally finds peace. Nicely done!

Really Great!

This is a creative, smart, well written, sad & hopeful book. Really quite wonderful. The performance is absolutely top notch.

Excellent concept

I loved the idea of adding this layer of the fey realm onto this classic tale. Very well written and performed.

Loved it

This book is right up my alley. It's a classic lit style fairytale that is all too human. Well written with great characters, and not at all cliché or over-written. I finished this book in 2 days because I couldn't stop listening for long. I had to come back.

Keeps you engaged

I enjoyed listening to this book; the reader did well differentiating the characters through inflection & accent & the storyline was engaging.
I listen for entertainment so was not happy at the resolution of the book, partly because it was over, & partly because of the author’s maneuvering characters. Due to plot, I presume the book was meant to bring fantasy together with a treatise on the French Revolution & how pointless and difficult revolutions are.