The Unwilling

By: Kelly Braffet

Narrated by: Tia Rider

"Fantasy at its most sublime!"--Erin Morgenstern, New York Times bestselling author of THE NIGHT CIRCUS

"Suspenseful, magical, wonderfully written… An essential addition to all epic-fantasy collections." —Booklist, STARRED review

A penetrating tale of magic, faith and pride…

Judah is an orphaned girl with a secret gift, born at the gates of Highfall castle. Raised alongside Gavin, heir to Lord Elban's empire, the two share an extrasensory bond—one that is key to Judah's survival and her possible undoing.

Elban—as mighty as he is cruel—plans to use Judah as a pawn to amass greater control. He will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

But beyond the castle walls, a magus, a healer with his own powerful force, has arrived from the provinces. He, too, has designs on the realm, and at the heart of his plans lies Judah… The girl who started life with no name and no history will soon discover her own strength. Intriguingly, she does not have to be given power: she can just take it.

dark story, but monotone narration

the story was good but darker than I care for, but I would have continued with the series if there had been any life and emotion in the narration instead of being so monotone.

Story good, narrator bad

I kept getting mentally booted out if the story by the narrator’s mispronunciations. About the 10th time I heard her pronounce “draught” as “drought” I almost returned the recording for credit. Lots of other words she got wrong, too. Is nobody working with her as she reads???

Not YA- heavy on the violence

Just to limit your expectations: this is not YA “young adult” fiction.
There is a lot of violence and I think the author was appealing to Stephen King fans who intersect with some of the more edgier YA authors.
My mind kept going to “The Cruel Prince” if you’ve read that you’ll know it’s pretty violent for a YA novel so imagine this as an actual adult version...at least in some ways.

Don’t expect a neat and clear plot or twists or a nicely unfolding storyline.

I enjoyed it just fine but would have skipped this title if I had a better idea of how unsatisfying it would be.
The narrator wasn’t amazing but not terrible.

well read plottings of plans within plans

The premise is a good start... politics and magic. you genuinely get to liking the children (main characters) and disliking the protagonists - of which there are a few.
then time skips ahead, we have games bc within plots and plots within games. and everything comes rushing forward so i hope you paid attebtion earlier!

what ..

I should have listened to the other review on this choice, this was an complete utter waste of my time, completely lost in the story that jump everywhere and it was said to be a novel but it's left open to a sequel. read at own risk.