Dragons of the Valley

A Novel

By: Donita K. Paul

Narrated by: Ariadne Meyers

Length: 13 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

War threatens the peaceful land of Chiril...can one painter-turned-reluctant-swordsman really help?

With an invasion of her country imminent, Tipper Schope is drawn into a mission to keep three important statues from falling into the enemy’s clutches. Her friend, the artist Bealomondore, helps her execute the plan, and along the way, he learns to brandish a sword rather than a paintbrush.

As odd disappearances and a rash of volatile behavior sweep Chiril, no one is safe. A terrible danger has made his vicious presence known: the Grawl, a hunter unlike any creature encountered before.

To restore their country, Tipper, Bealomondore, and their party must hide the statues in the Valley of the Dragons and find a way to defeat the invading army. When it falls to the artistic Bealomondore to wield his sword as powerfully and naturally as a paintbrush, will he answer Wulder’s call for a champion?

©2010 Donita K. Paul (P)2010 Random House Audio

Differing Narrators and Pronunciations is annoying

I love Danita K Paul's writing. I wish that if it's absolutely necessary to switch narrators then they would at least ask that the pronunciation of names was normalized. It interrupts the listening experience to the point you almost don't want to listen. It is as if a familiar friend has jarringly changed and takes quite a lot if adjusting to get to know again.

Fully finished what was started

When I started this series of Donita k Paul's books to be honest I found it a little boring at first. The first book dragons of the chrill started off slowly, but was informative as you read the book to the finish you felt like there could be more and you wanted the characters you enjoyed from the book to further develop. That is where this book comes in. The dragons of the valley reintroduced you to the characters you so much enjoyed. The adventure gets interesting, you learn to laugh and finally appreciate tippers mother, and feel Tipper growing into a more enjoyable person, who you can finally connect with and not just want to cover your eyes and grown aloud at. And Walder feels so real that you cannot help but want to know more about him. Overall I loved this book.

Mispronunciations Distract Reader to Good Story

The performer, Ms. Meyers did not perform either the Dragonkeeper Chronicles or the first book of the Chiril Dragons series The Vanishing Sculptor/Dragons of Chiril. It became abundantly clear in the first few minutes of this recording that was either she not coached or trained on the pronunciations established in the previous recorded novels, with kimens now being pronounced Keymons (like Pokemons). and poor tumanhofers names being mangled at every turn. It is very distracting and takes away from a story consistent with other offerings in Ms. Paul's series which offer wholesome quality spiritual fantasy adventures which have just the right balance of action, humor (I absolutely love the wizard Fenworth), but the performance by Ms. Meyer could have benefited with some simple consistencies with previous audio work done on these two series. Who knows, perhaps kimens (read: Kih-mums) should have always been Key-mons, but since I've never heard differently until now, I'm struggling to get used to it and absorb the story with the attention it deserves.