The Maker of Swans

De: Paraic O'Donnell

Narrado por: Mike Grady, Imogen Wilde

In the dead of night, shots ring out over the grounds of a sprawling English estate. The world-weary butler Eustace recognizes the gunman—his longtime employer, Mr. Crowe—and knows he must think and act quickly. Who is the man lying dead on the lawn? Who is the woman in his company? Can he clean up his master's mess like he always has before? Or will this bring a new kind of reckoning?

Mr. Crowe was once famed for his gifts—unaccountable gifts, known only to the members of a secretive order. Protected and privileged, he was courted by countesses and great men of letters. But he has long since retreated from that glittering world, living alone but for Eustace and Clara, his mysterious young ward. He has been content to live quietly, his great library gathering dust and his once magnificent gardens growing wild. He has left the past behind. Until now.

Because there are rules, even for Mr. Crowe and his kind, that cannot be broken. And this single night of passion and violence will have consequences, stirring shadows from the past. He and Eustace will be tested as never before. So too will Clara, whose own extraordinary gifts remain hidden, even from herself. If she is to save them all, she must learn to use them quickly and unlock the secret of who she is. It is a secret beyond imagining. A secret that will change everything.

©2022 Paraic O'Donnell (P)2022 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

dnf

Quit 3 hours in. Didn't hold my interest. I honestly didn't care about any of the characters.

Atmospheric but…

Lots of descriptive phrases beautifully written but I would have appreciated a story that made sense. Reads like the author was on drugs and just recorded various visions and tried to plop them into a story. Very unsatisfying.

basically liked it a lot

The narrators were great… Very believable in all the voices used. That's a big deal to me that can make or break up a novel as far as I'm concerned. The story was relatively easy to follow, but when it was all over I had one question remaining and that's what became of the girl in the mirror? What was that all about that sounded like it was going to go somewhere and then it just didn't? It didn't seem to tie into the rest of the story very well… Kind of felt like that part could've been edited out and it wouldn't have hurt a thing. I would have liked to have a little bit more backstory on Clara and how she came to be there, but overall it was interesting and kept me engaged. It's been a while since I've gotten some thing from Audible that I actually wanted to listen to besides podcast so this was a Lucky find in that regard. i'd recommend it if you know where the reason then to listen to talented narrators!

Artistic Mess

Basically an artistically written mess, an impossible to follow story line with a vague ending. Are the bad guys really punished? Who is the heroine and who the villain? Is the mystery solved or not? That is, where do Clara’s powers come from and who is she really? It's not even clear in the end what kind of powers she actually has. Then there're the actors in this confusing tale. With the exception of Clara and her caretaker, all were boorish stereotypes,

Pointless

Boring. No narrative thread nor character development. Long stretches of florid writing that seems to scratch an itch the writer had rather than serve the piece. Did this author have no editor?