Gregory

What...a pleasure!

Not only is the story magical, but the narrator John Lee was nothing short of sublime.

This is the first time I've listened to the narration of John Lee, but it will certainly NOT be the last. It was as if someone had kidnapped his mother and told him "if you don't pour out every last ounce of your soul into these characters, you'll never see her again". Had that been the case...Lee would have had his mother returned to him without a scratch.

To rate this experience a 5.0 is not enough.

Don't miss this gem.

I must admit, this book started slowly. At least I had a hard time getting into it. Plus, after having read some of the reviews, I ALMOST made the mistake of skipping this book. However...DON'T MAKE THAT MISTAKE. Even though it was slow during the first half, the second half more than makes up for it. I'm not sure I can say it's quite as good as Tai-Pan, but I can't rate it less than a 5 either. It ends too well. I was sorry that the end came, even though it's a LONG book. There are several loose ends that I suppose will be picked up in Noble House (at least I hope so), and it will surely be my next purchase (as soon as I recover from this one...smile). Be prepared to pay close attention though, because this book requires it.
Just a note about the narrator, John Lee does a splendid job except for his Asian accent. However, he does so well on all of the others that I still rate his performance as a "5".

I really enjoyed this book, but I felt that too much had been left out once I finished it. Had I not also listened to "Tandia", I would not have rated this a 5, simply because I didn't understand how the author could have left so much out.

However, I DID listen to "Tandia" (thankfully), and in my opinion, it could almost be called "The Power of One (Part 2)" since it fills in many of the blanks that were in my mind about "The Power of One".

That said, both the writer and the narrator did very fine work.

I hesitated when I read the subject matter for this book. I thought "mmm...nah, this sounds like soap opera material written mainly for women".

Even with the high review scores I passed over it numerous times, but still kept an eye on it.

Finally, I said to myself "Oh well...I'll buy it anyway. It's only a book, and if it's a piece of junk, I'll just stop if it becomes too boring".

Well, I'm happy to say that it fully deserves all of the accolades. Both the book and the narration are superb.

I swear, I don't think I've ever read anything that was so touching. You're either laughing your fanny off, or close to tears during the entire work.

Strangely enough, I just finished listening to "Gone With the Wind" (also a killer listen btw) and "The Help" is, I feel, on par with that classic.

I now know why this book has the highest avg. customer rating in the history of Audible.

Don't miss it.