Crown of Vengeance

The Dragon Prophecy, Book 1

By: Mercedes Lackey, James Mallory

Narrated by: Kate Rudd, Christopher Lane

Length: 23 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

Crown of Vengeance begins a new epic fantasy saga from New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory.

She is the unwanted spawn of a mad king and queen, her lands lost before her birth; her family - her very name - erased from history. Cursed by many, yet protected by an even greater curse.

She was born on a night of storm and terror, raised in protected concealment, then banished from the only home she had ever known - an ancient enemy's final stroke in a war begun centuries before.

Secret studies of hidden lore reveal the truth of the prophecy that heralded her coming. Dark dreams teach lessons of war and duty, of strategy and magecraft that she could not learn in a thousand lifetimes.

She does not have a thousand lifetimes. She has just one - and time is running out. For the prophecy spoke not just of her, but of a great Darkness that would destroy the elven kingdoms. A Darkness that is coming ever closer.

She is Vieliessar Farcarinon and she must save her people. Even if she must shatter custom and destroy the world she was born to rule.

©2012 Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Brilliant!!!

I had always hoped this story would be told after I read the other books based in this world. It did not disappoint! Kate Rudds STUNNING performance complimented by the wonderful tones of Christopher Lane were on point perfect!!!

Great Book! When is #3 coming out?

I love this book and book 2. I'm not a huge fan of the female narrator but the book is good enough that I can tolerate her voice. I'm really hoping that book 3 in this series comes out eventually.

Wonderful story, set in a beautiful world

I grew up reading the other books in this world by Mercades Lackey and James Mallory. This book is a wonderful start to what I'm sure will be yet another masterful and beautiful story.

Give it time...

The high fantasy elven language can be a bit much at first. Give yourself time, let the feel and emotion of the story take hold. This was a fantastic start to the prequel trilogy to the Obsidian Trilogy. Being thrust back into this world reminded me of how much I missed it.

Audio makes this book so much better!

I read this in print just after it came out. I enjoyed it, but the long, complex Elvish proper names frequently got in the way of the actual story for me. Listening to Kate's excellent performance allowed me to let the names just be names and the story to shine. Hopefully she will perform the sequel due out in October.

i very much enjoyed this book

this book is a treat to anybody who is a fan of the other books in the series. in particular I feel like it was a very fast-paced book that gripped your attention much better than many of the other books while at the same time expounding upon very interesting setting and characters that had been only vaguely hinted at in previous books. my only complaint is that around two-thirds of the way in there are several transitions from one point of view to another that become difficult to follow and I lost the thread had to release and a certain parts.

It was ok, once you got into it...

At the beginning of the book it was really hard to get into the story line and kind of hard to follow even once you did. I think the narrator is what made me stay with the book instead of returning it. The names are SUPER LONG and all kind of sound the same in a sense so again it made it hard to follow the characters. I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out who they were talking about and how they related to the story previously finding myself rewinding often. Good fight scenes though!

Over all the book was ok. I would give it a 3.5 star but since we cant do halves I gave it a 4.

overall not to my liking

The endless long elvish names were confusing to my ears. The reader did a marvelous job of reading them. By the end the elves had wrecked their ecology so badly that I started rooting for the Endarken. I couldn't sympathise with the elves at all by the end.

Terribly boring and rescued by excellent performance

It is an extremely long book with lots of characters who have very long unpronounceable or very similar sounding names. Because of that, it’s extremely difficult to follow. I bought it because I enjoyed listening to some other books by this author, but this was almost unlistenable.

THEEDGEOFMYSEATCAN'TWAITFORTHENEXT

This is probably the fastest pace book I've ever read. It was like a mad Sprint all the way through never faltered. Incredible all the way around and I've been waiting 2 years on the seat of my pants for the next chapter in the story