Prisoner

Kria, Book 1

By: Megan Derr

Narrated by: Sean Crisden

Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

A man whom all men fear...

General Dieter von Adolwulf has led the Scarlet Army of Kria to victory for the past decade, holding the infamous field known as the Regenbogen against Kria's hated enemies - the deceptive Illussor and the ruthless Salharans. War has waged between the three nations for longer than anyone can remember, but no one has held the Regenbogen as well as the notorious Wolf of Kria and his fearsome army.

A man who fears nothing...

Returning home at the end of the year, the Scarlet Army is attacked in the dead of night by a single man who manages to kill hundreds before he is finally captured. A Salharan soldier with no name, no purpose but to kill, he refuses to bend to the Wolf who takes him prisoner and forces upon him a despicable Krian name.

A man with nothing to lose...

When the rest of his army is slaughtered by Illussor soldiers desperately seeking his prisoner, Dieter determines to hold fast - both for answers and in revenge for the men he lost. But answers and revenge are hard to come by when surrounded by secrets and treachery, and the man least likely to kill him is the prisoner who most wants him dead.

©2010-2014 Less Than Three Press, LLC (P)2014 Less Than Three Press, LLC

Entertaining, Action packed, & well written.

A riveting tale, it is enjoyable start to finish. The characters are rich and dynamic. There is just enough of a lead to make the plot twist believable but surprising.

second chance

the first time I tried listening to this book I couldnt stand the narration so I bought the Kindle version and read that. I loved it so much I gave the audio a second chance. the narrative could have been better but was not near as bad as I remember.

Packed Fantasy Novel!

There is soooo much happening in this book! It was a challenge only having the audiobook and not the ebook with all of the people, magics, schemes, etc.

While I appreciated the fact that there was no info dump, a little bit of information early on would have really helped me out.

On the romance aspect, there are two couples, but really one main focus (but with LOTS of POV’s). One couple’s romance is basically a throwaway early on. The other is one of enemies to lovers, but mostly enemies for 98% of the book. Then they come together—finally—and the book ends.

The audiobook was well done, especially with the multitude of voices. It took me a long time to wrap my head around what was going on, but once I did, things started to move along for me, anticipating how the two antagonistic capturer and captive would come together.

Now I want to know what happens next in this land full of war, magic, & schemes.

Recommended, but it’d be great to have a glossary handy (only if the audiobook had one…)

High Fantasy with light romance

This is a high fantasy story really, intricate with a lot of players from 3 different nations at war with each other.

Our main characters, despite the many secondary characters, are still are Dieter and Beraht. Dieter is the general of the Scarlet army of Kria and Beraht is a nameless soldier of the country of Salhara. He is captured by the Scarlet Army when he tries to kill as many soldiers as possible. He is named Beraht by Dieter , something that Beraht loathes because names as sacred to Salharans and it is an honor to get a name by someone important or loved one.

The thing is that Beraht at 28yo was never anyone to any Salharan but a pawn easily discarded thus trying to kill 1000 Krians, by the creed of his superiors, so that he can gain the right to a name.

So being a prisoner and having to endure the shame of being given a Krian name by a Krian, the relationship between Beraht and Dieter was always a tense one, with a lot of fighting and exchanging of insults.

Being familiar already with the story I knew these two will end up together, because hate and love are nothing but the other side of the same coin, but still I was looking for those nuances that would indicate that these went from aggravating each other to loving one another but really there aren't really any.

Apart from a kiss used so that Dieter could give red Arken to Beraht to help him escape, Beraht returning Dieter's sword to him and escaping together and Dieter naming his sword Bright, there's nothing else to even hint at anything for the two of them. So when there's a not so gentle push from Esta to Beraht and things move towards that, the story pretty much ends with an epilogue set in about 8 years later showing us that Beraht and Dieter are still together (if not married).

Frankly Sol and Iah have a lot more on page romance going that those two, which is a pity really because as much explosive their anger was their love couldn't be any less.

As narration goes Sean Crisden proves his mastery as a narrator and performer here BUT I can't say I much liked the voice/accent thing he was doing in the beginning for both Dieter and Beraht. I think after the first 3-4 chapters he mellowed it a bit and it was much more pleasant.

An excellent series this and I wish the other books were turned into audio as well.

I LOVE IT😍❤️❤️

Hello fellow mm readers if your wondering if you should buy this audio book, you definitely should! The story is well thought out the characters draw you in wanting to learn more about them. I love the setting the way the author describes is entrancing. The narrator is AWESOME and really brings the characters to life. I love how it’s not overly sexual, how the author teases at it and makes you wait the build up is beautiful and when they finally do it’s oh so satisfying.

Tedious

I got the sense that this story was written as serialized fan fiction. Not sure if there was an editor here. Most of the story was told through really tedious expository conversations, there were huge holes in the logic and story world and both romances were really superficial and unsexy. Despite a very good narrator, this story was a real slog to finish.

Not bad

Honestly, took me multiple tries to get into this. Overall though, I will say it had a lot of good parts that I enjoyed. The enemies to lovers in this (once you get into it) is pretty good. There is one moment that literally had me howling where a rescue attempt involve bodily throwing the other into a wall. I'm going to hell for how hard I laughed at that part, but honestly, it took me by surprise although considering their dynamic up until that point I should have expected something like that. Anyway, the downside for me is that the villains kinda get taken care of pretty quickly so it kinda feels anti-clamatic in a sense, a lot of scenes sort of pass by quickly, and in spite of having such a well thought out magic system, the magic doesn't exactly feel like an integral part of the world. At one point, one of the main conflicts is one nation giving up magic, but I feel like I barely saw them actually utilizing the magic in everyday life? So that whole plot point had no impact to me.

I feel like this book needed to be a trilogy to be honest, because therr was a lot more that could have been done, and that the wars and conflicts too quickly resolved. If I had to pick the best part of this story, I would say it's the main couple. Also, because I think this needs to be said, but the cover art is ugly. No offense to the artist, because it's good art, just not suited for a story that's meant to pull in readers. I had to keep forcing myself ignore the cover art and tell myself that Bright did not in fact look like a gremlin.