Coming of age story with romantic and fantastic elements.

I have listened to this book more than once and enjoyed Dunne's narration.

It is a comforting book.

The first time I tried to listen to this book, I was unable to get into it so it sat in my library for a year or more. When I finally gave it a second shot, I was able to wrap my head around it and throughly enjoyed it. It is an odd, post-collapse tale with a richly conceived world and unique characters. Fawn and Dag make an unlikely couple who have adventures in a profoundly disturbed environment. At its core, it is a well written and optimistic coming of age story written by a master writer. I listened to it for the third time (start to finish) when I had to put my beloved 13 plus year old greyhound to sleep. I felt utterly miserable for days and was sliding into an emotional funk. On a hunch, I decide to listen to Beguilment on the off chance it could lift my spirits - which it did admirably so.

Absolutely! I recommend this audiobook and this series. Not only is the story engrossing, compelling and witty but the narration is excellent. Just coming from listening to the Richard K Morgan series, I thought this series might be lightweight but I was totally pleasantly surprised. I found the characters refreshing and almost innocent by comparison to the dark characters in the Morgan or Abercrombie books, but they were remarkably attractive and interesting and complex.

Dunne's narration is remarkable. She is very versitile and able to clearly differentiate characters for the listener. She is also able to catch and hold the listener's attention and interest through her narration.

Lois McMaster Bujold develops a fascinating world and characters. On top of everything else, including the love story, the discovery of inner strength and talents, overcoming adversity, cooperation and more, it is a wonderful story of two groups of peoples slowly overcoming superstitious prejudice and the beginnings of true understanding and trust.

She provides just enough information about the events that occurred before the books for the reader to theorize about the probable history. I hope Bujold has plans for a future book(s) expanding on the history of this ‘world’ and possibly more development of the third group of ‘peoples’.

I bought the first book of this series through one of spend 2 credits get 3 book specials and it was one of my best buys thus far. I promptly bought the rest of the books of the series & enjoyed them all.

The premise of this story is good.....the personal interactions are icky....very "cheap romance novel" interactions between the main characters. I really wanted them to stop talking and get to the plot of the book....sadly, I realized by the end of this book, that the action part of this series certainly wasn't happenin' in THIS book. Disappointing.

What a wonderful imagination

I love this author's stories and this on is no exception. So far in my fantasy quest I've read nothing like it. Men might find it a bit sentamental but as a married woman I was reminded of my courtship time. Although a bit explicit, it was a refreshing jogging of memory as well as being a well-spun tale with colorful characters.

I think the most enjoyable part about this book is that I could not predict what was going to happen. Dag and Fawn kept me laughing at the oddities and intrigued with what was going to happen next.

She makes you feel like the book was written a long time ago, it wasn't, it is just an instant classic. This book was recommended to me by a friend so I read it without reading up on what it was about. I was surprised to find that this book was written relatively recently.

I don't know what there would be to complain about for this book. It is different but once you get into it, I was excited to find out what was going to happen next with them.

I have a hard time getting interested in a book with romance between an 18 yrs old and a 55 yr old. I year younger (and I think that is just a technicality) it would be a love story of a pedophile. Other than that, it would be just OK..

I've loved listening to this entire series! I enjoyed it even more than Bujold's other fantasy works. All four books are great, but definitely start with this one, as the series is essentially one long story broken up into 4 books. Book 1 introduces the wonderful romantic relationship that runs through the series, between two thoroughly memorable characters Fawn and Dag, and sets up everything that they will be working for and fighting for in the later books.

The world of the story is very rich, and the ideas it explores are actually more sophisticated than many fantasy novels. There is less "sword and sorcery" in it than in the more male-oriented fantasy volumes. I think that women listeners will really love this series. It is about relationships and love, about different paradigms and world views, and how to harmonise people's differences.

There is so much love and joy in this book! It is very gripping, yet nothing too terrible happens in it, and all the characters learn and grow, which is very satisfying. It is a very uplifting story and I always felt happy when listening to it.

Re the narrator: The characters in this series are wonderful and really come to life in this reading by Bernadette Dunne. Every single character is immediately recognisable as soon as they speak - I don't know how she does it! It is one of the best narrations I have experienced so far on Audible. Five stars!

Great characters and unique, creative world. It does seem to veer toward romance pretty often in this first volume. The other 3 books in the series are less so. I do like Bujold's storytelling skill, however; so, the love story parts weren't off-putting. Only other comment is I would have probably enjoyed series more if it had been 2 volumes vs 4. Volumes 1 and 2 seem paired together in plotline and 3 and 4 definitely follow the same plot as a tradition journey and return story.