Dark Moon Defender

The Twelve Houses, Book 3

By: Sharon Shinn

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

The Rider Justin is sent to the small town of Neft, so he can spy on the nearby Lumanen Convent, where the Daughters of the Pale Mother reside. He quickly learns that Coralinda Gisseltess, the leader of the Daughters, is indeed persecuting mystics and the people who shelter them.

Even more quickly, he falls in love with Ellynor, one of the convent novices. But the courtship is perilous in the extreme. Not only does Coralinda hate the king and the king's Riders, but Ellynor is from the Lirrenlands, where women are not allowed to take lovers outside of the close-knit clans. If her brothers find out about Justin, they will insist upon a duel to the death...and if Coralinda finds out that Ellynor is a mystic, Ellynor's own life will be instantly at risk.

BONUS AUDIO: Includes an exclusive introduction by author Sharon Shinn.

House hunting? Download more in The Twelve Houses series.

©2006 Sharon Shinn (P)2008 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Shinn....paints their journey with a lyrical grace and deep appreciation of camaraderie reminiscent of Diane Duane at her best." (Publishers Weekly)

Delightful story, and the reader was perfect

The reader had a nice mix of a gentle voice, but husky enough to represent characters such as Justin. I enjoyed this book.

Great story, okay narrator

It comes down to liking the voice of the other narrator better. Still great story!

4 star book, 2.5 star narration

A few caveats for this review:
(1) I've read these books a few times before and always enjoyed them, so I already liked the story and the relationships between the characters. Interesting world building and in-depth character studies, but nothing that is going to blow your mind or shake up the genre. The mix of fantasy and romance (pretty tame romance actually) is nice and entertaining.
(2) I also really enjoyed the narration for Mystic and Rider and The Thirteenth House. I get why they switched to a male narrator for books 3 and 4, but I started off a bit disappointed so I was already a little biased against the narrator from the beginning.
(3) I immediately recognized Barrett from his narration of Bonfire of the Vanities, which was really good but given that all of those haracters are pretty terrible people it threw me off at first.

With those caveats, I thought he did a good job with the main characters, especially the new ones (Justin, Ellynor, the Lestra, Senneth) except for two fairly important supporting characters--Kirra and Cammon. The voice he used for Kirra was only a bit annoying, but the accent for Cammon morphed midway through the book from the more proper English accent Van Dyke used in books 1 and 2 to a horribly grating cockney accent. Luckily he only appears in a few scenes here, but it is so bad that I am probably not going to get book 4 since he is the main character and I couldn't take it for a full book.

Couldn't finish it

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

If someone can deal with a sappy love story of amazingly boring proportions involving two individuals who appear to be intellectually challenged, and deal with a tremendous lack of action and swordplay, then this book is for you.

Would you ever listen to anything by Sharon Shinn again?

I hope not.

New Narrator - Oh no

I was disappointed with this book, because the persons I had come to love while listening to book 1 & 2 no longer sounded like themselves.

Terrible Change in Reader

What did you like best about Dark Moon Defender? What did you like least?

I love this series and thoroughly enjoyed the recordings of the first two books. Unfortunately, the new male reader for book 3 is awful. The accents he uses for some of the male characters are cliche and all the women sound fairly weak and girly. Given how powerful most of the female characters are, that's a definite distraction. I will not be buying the recording of book 4.

Narrator is all wrong!

Book is just as good as the previous books, but this new narrator has a very narrow range of "voices"; something he tries to make up for by making female voices sound childish, nasal and fake. All he achieves is ripping the reader right out of the story as he sounds like mocking teenagers. Please get a narrator who understands this is not a book for 12 year olds.