Master of One

By: Jaida Jones, Dani Bennett

Narrated by: Lisa Cordileone

Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Sinister sorcery. Gallows humor. A queer romance so glorious it could be right out of fae legend itself. Master of One is a fantasy unlike any other.

Rags the thief has never met a pocket he couldn’t pick, but when he’s captured by a sorcerer with world-ending plans, he realizes even he is in over his head. Forced to use his finely honed skills to nab pieces of an ancient fae relic, Rags is stunned to discover that those “relics” just happen to be people:

A distractingly handsome Fae prince,

A too-honorable Queensguard deserter,

A scrappy daughter of a disgraced noble family,

A deceptively sweet-natured prince,

A bona fide member of the Resistance,

And him. Rags.

They may all be captives in the sorcerer’s terrible scheme, but that won’t stop them from fighting back. And, sure, six unexpected allies against one wicked enemy doesn’t make for generous odds, but lucky for him, Rag’s not generous—he’s smart. And he has a plan that just might get them out of this alive.

With the heist and intrigue of Six of Crows and the dark fairy tale feel of The Cruel Prince, this young adult fantasy debut will have listeners rooting for a pair of reluctant heroes as they take on a world-ending fae prophecy, a malicious royal plot, and, most dangerously of all, their feelings for each other.

©2020 Jaida Jones (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

good fun fantasy for a modern audience

and by "modern" that isn't just code for "queer," though yes being queer myself that's part of it. Also the plot of intrigue and questioning values/authority, rather than a straightforward Evil Enemy Empire or something. The fact that a decent amount of the scenes and character design feel inspired by shonen anime.

The ending felt... like a weird place to stop, I do wanna say. No spoilers, ofc, but exactly one (1) plot thread felt thoroughly addressed at the end of the novel. Like they were making progress on others, good, and just because the one plot *could* take this as a turning point, it's not like. great. I assume there is (or was) a sequel planned, but doesn't look like it's out yet.

I want more

I read this book a little while ago and I keep checking back to see if there is a sequel. I love all the characters and how they handle the situations they face. It has such a lovely romance and so much potential for more. Ugh I love it.

Fantastic

One of the best I’ve listen so far.. can’t wait until the next.. the story is well written, the reading excellent!!

Patiently waiting for the next book...

NOT. this book is so freaking good, I'm wearing tracks in my carpet waiting for the next one!! absolutely worth the read, the plot and characters will keep you so invested you'll try to finish it all in one sitting!!

fantastical and fun

I loved the characters! Nobody felt overdone or one-dimensional, they were all engaging and felt real. I'm hoping and dreaming of a book 2 to come out soon. We also had a lot of diversity between the characters and the story was fast-paced and kept my interest.

A delightful and romantic adventure

I love this work. Wonderful world-building, superb pacing, a delightful queer fantasy adventure. Each character thread builds toward a satisfactory conclusion, which can be tricky given the number of POV characters in this book. I am in love with how the authors are able to maintain a clipped pace in the plot, while slowly spooning out the creative details, very well done. Worth your time.

Couldn’t do it

Made it about 3 hours in and I’m so bored and not at all engaged in the story. The writing style is so passive that there’s barely any dialogue just “character did this then did that”. The narrator is fine — her voices aren’t bad but there’s so little said that you never get the voices. Her voice just isn’t interesting or captivating during the regular narration part. The main character has gone on an entire Indiana Jones adventure kk the first few hours and I’m bored to tears by it.

I really hate to DNF a book but I can’t do it.

Go read Jennifer L Armentrout, Sarah J Maas, or Rebecca Yarros if you want good and engaging fantasy

Bad story and character development

I couldn't finish it. I got to Chapter 14 and I realized that it was so bland I only knew of a few things going on. So, I paid close attention to Chapter 15 and... figured out what was bothering me and why I couldn't pay attention or find this interesting. The author is excessively wordy. I could summarize everything from chapter 1 to 15 in less than a paragraph. There wasn't enough material that it took 15 chapters to get to this point in the story. Example, the Main Character and Fae have a conversation for 3 paragraphs and only three lines of dialogue just to say the Fae wasn't going to elaborate.
Secondly, the author is trying to write this in first person perspective but they did the actual writing in 3rd person. We constantly hear the main characters thoughts, without dialogue, and everyone else only responds with 2-3 sentences. This really skewed the character participation and limited the character development of everyone. It probably would have made a better short story.
The reader wasn't bad, though, and I can't fault her on having a bad story to read from.

Bland

Contrary to the summary, this had nowhere near the personality of Six of Crows. A promising beginning following thief Rags as he is forced to go tomb raiding gives way to a long slog of POVs hunting for what amounts to a bunch of Macguffin artifacts. The various POVs divide into two parallel paths that never really come back together. There’s little action until the final hour, when there’s an underwhelming battle and a partial victory, leaving the Macguffin search incomplete and forecasting at least one more book to come. Only, I don’t think I particularly care to look for it.

The concept of bonding with sentient artifacts was mildly interesting, along with the creepy spycraft of sorcerer Morian The Last. But everything was just … so … meh. The most impactful parts are the initial massacre scene and out of place F bombs in this otherwise fit for teens book. And the MM romance?
It’s barely there and has zero heat. This wasn’t awful, just bland.

DNF @40%

I read over 200 pages and if you asked me to summarize it to you? I couldn’t even tell you what happened. The writing wasn’t vibing with me, all the modern cursing (even though it doesn't mention which era this is set in) and those weird long-names for no reason. Very boring for my taste and pacing was confusing too. The narrator was a bit off in my opinion.