Ghosts of the Erlyn

Catalyst, Book 3

By: C.J. Aaron

Narrated by: Travis Baldree

Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

Awakened. Enlightened. The Harvest fast approaches.

Ryl and his companions hasten for the annual ceremony, determined to set in motion an event certain to rock Damaris to its core. Only days remain with many miles to navigate.

Armed with new knowledge and plagued by lingering doubts, the path forward has proven more complicated than anticipated. The reality and the truth are far more convoluted. The road through the kingdom is long and wrought with danger and uncertainty.

As the Stocks approach, the tension mounts. It's been more than 1,000 cycles since a phrenic walked free in Damaris.

Saving the tributes will come at a price.

Is the kingdom ready to bare the cost? Is Ryl?

Don't miss the epic finale to C.J. Aaron's debut Catalyst series. You will never see what's coming!

©2020 Aethon Books (P)2020 Aethon Audio

Great way to Continue the story

This story was great, I felt like this book was a bit rushed at first but upon finishing it I changed that thought and just loved every moment of the book. I cant wait for books 4 & 5!

Great follow-up

Try to stop listening even when you get off work and go home. I bought all three can't wait for the 4th.

Took a step backgwards

While C.J. Aaron's prose is still very well crafted, this book of the series was overly repetitive on areas of past exploits and constant elongated debilitating passages of fear and angst of what lies ahead. Most of this made listening the story progress a grindingly slow slog with the final epic battle aftermath left unknown and the cliff-hanger ending dissatisfying.

Travis Baldree performance was stellar as always.

Ryl is back and it's explosive!

Ryl is back!.. and he's even better that before!!! He's going to finish up what he set out to do in the previous tale... save his friends, his people while also stopping the cruel, decades-long-practice of enslaving children of a certain blood type... His Blood Type!
But to do that, Ryl has to enlist the aid of the Erlyn and fight some of his own ghosts along the way! So grab the book and find out if the world is ready for the explosive change ✨! And yes, as I've stated in my earlier reviews, my love affair with Ryl hasn't yet ended... fortunately there's another book to be released in December!
Again thanks go out to Travis for his perfectly nuanced performance! 

Freedom! but at what cost?

This episode, we see the return to the Stocks, after a very dangerous and torturous road to get there.
What occurs next, well that's a story that is best told in the author's words.
Yes, it is a journey that all should take, to understand what inhumane behavior can be wort on those who
are perceived as different than the norm, and it takes courage and convection to stand up against those that want power, by diminishing others.
Yes, cannot wait to see what happens next!

EXCELLENT FOLLOW UP VERY CAPTIVATING

Continues to be one of my favorite series and continues to be engrossing i very much look forward to continue reading this series!!!

felt forcefully extended

I hate when writers force intrigue thinking its clever but its just an annoying exclusion to keep a story going. "oooo this thing happened that we won't tell you about because I need you to keep reading"
you keep people with good writing that can progress naturally and believability...not with forced random occurrences the defy the rules of your own characters and world building...

Not up to the standard of books 1 & 2.

While I found this book to be enjoyable on the whole, it was somewhat disappointing in execution. Where the first two books cover a lot of ground plot-wise, this book spends almost all of its time repetitiously belaboring the emotional aspects of every single incident.

We are treated to declarative statement after declarative statement about the suffering, or the comradery, or the self-doubt, or the understanding, or the resolve of any act, interaction, or thought. It came off as exceedingly melodramatic, cringeworthy, and even more importantly, wholly unnecessary.

This series is so given over to archetypes of absolute evil and inherent righteousness that to constantly name and recap the associated emotions with expository declarations was like putting brown sugar on top of your bowl of Lucky Charms... in a single word: gross.

Someone should have given some feedback to the author and let him know that he could have cut this book down by 2/3’s simply by allowing the plot to move and editing out all the cheese.

I really hope the next book see’s a return to moving the plot forward and not a continuation of all the aching overstated emotion of this installment.

Overly ornate, maudlin prose

Maybe it took three books for me to see the author's pattern, but it was almost more than I could stand. So much of the narration focuses on the inner emotional state of our MC and goes on for paragraph after paragraph. At one point, I was screaming out loud "Oh, come on!" The language is too flowery and the author has the MC use stilted language that no uneducated 18-year-old would use, such as "Let us make haste!". And then I noticed that the author used "haste" everywhere in one form of the other, when "hurried" would have worked just fine.

The overall story is good, but the author would do better to use more straightforward language, rather than attempting to emulate what he regards as fine literature. I will probably not buy the next book in the series.