Tainted by Prophecy

Kumari's Kitsune

By: Hanleigh Bradley

Narrated by: Elizabeth LaRose

Book Two of Seven

Even at its very beginning, her reign felt tainted by the prophecies that surrounded it and the death that they foretold.

They were dark, speaking of unknown evils and the potential destruction of the realm, and even the eradication of magic. It was not a destiny that Bae, the Kumari, wanted but it was the one allotted her.

Bae wished that she could deny them, call them falsehoods but she couldn't, not when the fate of the whole realm rested on her shoulders.

It might cost her her life, or the lives of those she loved most, but she would stop at nothing to save magic, save her Ren, and hopefully save herself.

More About the Kumari's Kitsune Series

Kumari’s Kitsune is a RH Fantasy Romance. Bae is the Kumari of Maho, a fictional realm with seven tribes. To ensure magical and political stability she must claim a mate from each of the seven tribes, but an unknown enemy is hell-bent of destroying the realm, its queen, and the magic that sustains it.

Books in the Series

Cursed by the Crown, Tainted by Prophecy, Lost to the Throne, Corrupted by Innocence, Deranged by Darkness, Undone by Destiny, and Returned to Magic.

©2019 Hanleigh Bradley (P)2021 Hanleigh Bradley

great book

this book is good just the narrator didn't flow smoothly she stoped and started several times

Baskerville Book Reviews

Since it’s been a long time and many reviews since I listened to book 1, I decided to revisit it before this review. While I enjoyed listening to both books back to back, for the most part, I’m kinda over it. I’ve grown tired of this means of storytelling where (what should be) a single book is split into multiple smaller books and sold separately.

It’s a pain in the ass as a reader because you have to go through the extra hassle to get every book and never get the whole story until you acquire them all. If you’re new to it, imagine ordering a pizza and you have to place 4 orders to get the entire thing. It’s annoying as hell.

Both books 1 and 2 feel like they’re slowly and I mean slow as a snail’s pace, crawling up to something bigger. But this glacial pace means you have to sit through 8+ hours of mindless., back-and-forth drama for a payoff that might not even be that great.

As far as the content of the story goes, the only thing of note is the author’s poor choice of words. When ‘Bae’ puts her hand on her abdomen and refers to it as her stomach. There are multiple things wrong with this and it will always annoy the hell out of me. Fetuses don’t develop in a woman’s stomach, for starters. It’s her womb. Second off, if she’s placing her hand on her stomach, which is an internal organ, she has some serious medical issues to address.

The dialogue is all kinds of awful. I’ve railed against narrators who can’t pronounce basic words properly. “Farmiliar” isn’t a word, little kids know this and yet numerous narrators still say it. The audio is littered with repeated dialogue clips, at one point, you can hear the narrator smacking and it sounds as if she’s swallowing a golf ball before she repeats the line. It’s very apparent that nobody bothered to listen to the “finished” audio recording before listing it on Audible for sale.

Finally, the biggest nail in the coffin is how bad her narration skills are. She did a decent job of giving each character a distinct voice and personality. But she went on to read the entire story in the same vocal range. Regardless of the mood the author was attempting to set. It led to this stale, lifeless, boring performance that made me want to DNF both books.

NOTE: This copy was provided to me free of charge as a digital review copy. The opinions stated in this review are mine and mine alone, I was not paid or requested to give this book a certain rating, suggestion, or approval.

Captivating!

Bae, the Kumari, continues to travel the realms in search of her 7 mates. She has been haunted with believing that she may be living the life spelled out in the prophecy of evil and there's nothing she can do about it. The mates she has claimed up until this point, are considerate, loving and help her through all her troubles. What she doesn't know is that someone is working behind the scenes to make sure that Bae doesn't live, along with her baby. She wants to rule the real. There are questions raised about loyalty and trust, and Bae remembers the words of her mother telling her not to trust anybody, not even friends and family, because they may turn on her. This continues to be a story that fascinates me with the lush description and the vivid characterization with which Ms. Bradley writes. Elizabeth LaRose is a terrific narrator with a dynamic voice that gives each character a unique personality. I'm anxious to read the next book to see where Bae's journey takes her. 

dynamic story, characters and narrator

This next part of Bae's is no less trying. Each character is dynamic with a lot of history. This book is filled with a mixture of tear and laughter, sometimes even at the same time. I am excited to find out what happen next. The narrator is easy to understand and coveys emotion well. Her voice was dynamic and it was easy to differentiate the characters in the back and forth dialogue.

Book 2 Kumari's Kitsune

This is book 2 in Bradley's Kumari's Kitsune series and while I know I've listened to the first in this series, it's been so long that it took me awhile to get back to where this storyline was - so in that regard be sure to read / listen to these books in series order. In this book, Kumari is faced with hard choices, and lots of hurt as prophecies come to fruition and death seems to surround her. Traveling to choose her additional mates while should be a time of joy and celebration is Tainted by Prophecy. Looking forward to more in this series to see how Kumari's journey continues. Narration, while good I'm not sure if it's narration or production in that there are several points in the listen where lines are repeated which is distracting. The narration voice is smooth but at times comes across monotone but allows the story to come thru rather well overall.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.