Nala's Story

Champion Standing, Book 0

By: Mark Gardner

Narrated by: Edoardo Camponeschi

Nala and her sister live their lives as slaves in the Han Dynasty. A chance encounter at a bazaar leads Nala on a mission to keep her sister safe from evil, while learning that not everything is as it appears to be. Can she save her sister and herself before it is too late?

©2015 Mark Gardner (P)2016 Article94

Story gets lost in the narration

It took me a minute to get into it, but only because I found the narrator's inflection to be a bit... jarring, for lack of a better term. It was very distracting to me personally, and I found myself straining to listen to his words so that I lost much of the story at first. But once I got used to his speaking manner and understood the gist of what was going on, I was hooked. In ways it reminded me of listening to one of Aesop's Fables, very short but well defined and fully rounded with a hint of "don't judge a book by it's cover" and a dash of "follow your gut". Gardner definitely knows how to write; the dialogue is natural and his descriptions put you in the story. And what it lacks in length, it more than makes up for in substance. Everything comes full circle and fits together quite perfectly in the end. I'd certainly recommend it for a shorter read (or listen).