Cast in Shadow

Chronicles of Elantra, Book 1

By: Michelle Sagara

Narrated by: Khristine Hvam

Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

Seven years ago, Kaylin fled the crime-riddled streets of Nightshade, knowing that something was after her. Children were being murdered— and all had the same odd markings that mysteriously appeared on her own skin….

Since then, she's learned to read, she's learned to fight and she's become one of the vaunted Hawks who patrol and police the City of Elantra. Alongside the winged Aerians and the immortal Barrani, she's made a place for herself, far from the mean streets of her birth.

But children are once again dying, and a dark and familiar pattern is emerging. Kaylin is ordered back into Nightshade with a partner she knows she can't trust, a Dragon lord for a companion and a device to contain her powers—powers that no other human has. Her task is simple—find the killer, stop the murders… and survive the attentions of those who claim to be her allies!

Spellbound? Listen to more Chronicles of Elantra.

©2011 Michelle Sagara (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Enthralling

I had difficulties with following plot twists or character dialogue at times, but it was great!!

Awesome!!!

This is a great series. I listen to it at least three times a year.

Highly recommend

Amazing book paired with a most wonderful narrator. I can’t wait to keep reading this series.

These ones

A pretty good story and I may get the next one. However, the author’s unfortunate, continued use of “these ones” was so annoying. Where was her editor? Will someone please tell her that “these ones” is nearly as bad as irregardless? Every time she used this phrase my neck disappeared and it knocked me out of the story.

This is the first book i've ever had the 0_o face

Cast in Shadow was white noise for me. I started this book over from the begining at least 4 times and rewound countless times, thinking I had to be missing something. I have no idea what element was missing to keep my attention. Listen to the entire book, almost didn't make it home a couple days from almost nodding off.

Had promise

What disappointed you about Cast in Shadow?

Wow, where to begin. First, I really wanted to like this book. It had a lot of promise, but it failed to live up to it, in my opinion. It feels like a first novel (I have no idea if it is) and it needed *a lot* of editing. I found the the main character's internal monologues (and sometimes external monologues) endless and tedious. The author is fond of hinting at something (character X knows something *important* about the main character) but then doesn't reveal it (character X tells main character they're not going to tell her because she doesn't need to know even though it effects her directly) and the main character doesn't have any curiousity about it, she just accepts it. A lot of the mystery about the various marks and at least one major conflict could have been resolved so much more easily if people had just had an honest conversation about it. Instead, they create meaningless problems for themselves. Misunderstandings are apparently just a way of life for Kaylin, along with crazy mood swings and fits of sulking. The dialogue is pretty stilted and frustrating to listen to. About a third of the way through, I started listening to the book at 1.5x speed so it would be over faster. It kept my attention enough that I wanted to know how it ended, but not enough to linger over it in normal time.

Which character – as performed by Khristine Hvam – was your favorite?

Khristine Hvam was the best part of this audiobook. She did a good job distinguishing the races's accents and doing her best with the dialogue. I would definitely listen to more books with this narrator.

Very boring and slow

First thing that comes to mind while listing to the book is mutual of omaha wild kingdom and all sorts of animals. The heroine, if you can call her that is constantly being over shadowed by the males in the book, them being over protected of her and her not doing anything about it. Dominance this, dominance that just like the wild kingdom.

I am still on the fence with Khristine being a narrator, I will need to hear her read a book series worth my time.

Dull story and duller narration

I suffered through over three chapters on 1.45 speed before finally giving up. And I very rarely change the speed either, so that should say something about how awful the narrator is.

If you make a fantasy world...DESCRIBE IT!

More information is needed! I don't know what this fantasy world looks like, I bearly know what the characters look like. Is this world kinda futuristic or more like Game of Thrones / Lord of the Rings ? There is no pretense to what these different clans are; Hawk, Wolf, Dragon, Shadow Thief ect. what are these clans to each other, who is suppose to be the top clan? Why can you change clans? Why would you want to? This book is lacking in everything. It just starts off by talking like you should know everything about the world already, there is no introduction and explaination of anything, just characters dialogue. No character developement, so when something happens I don't care because the characters are pretty strangers anyways. I really don't know why this book got high rating I thought it was awful. I wouldn't waste a credit.
If you like fantasy read Karen Marie Moning and Kresley Cole....they are the best.

coudn't get into this one

Any additional comments?

I read some of the other reviews and most of them were positive so I percevered 3/4 of the way in. But I succumbed and couldn't go on. The storyline was dull and it wasn't put together very well. . I couldn't get the imagery happening in my head.