The Unseen Blade

The Serpent's Heir, Book 1

By: Ambrose Zack Adams

Narrated by: Ivan Andres Ley

Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

When Lucian Draco becomes the youngest person to ever be accepted into the Valiant Minds School of Magic, the fact that magic even exists at all is as much knowledge as he has on the subject. After a lifetime of being sheltered by his father, Lucian is more than ready to learn where he fits into the magical community...but the answer is more complicated than he’s prepared for.

Thrust into a new world of competitions and rivalries, fast friends and faster enemies, Lucian soon discovers he’s no ordinary mage - he’s the living host of a long-dormant spirit called the Dragon of the Mind, born with power and intelligence beyond his wildest dreams. But there’s a reason Lucian’s father kept the truth of this power hidden from his own son, and it’s not the only secret being kept. With supernatural threats looming on the horizon, including a bloodthirsty vampire aching to restart an ancient war, getting through school is about to become the least of Lucian’s worries.

©2020 Ambrose Adams (P)2020 Ambrose Adams

A Derivative YA Fantasy w/ poor narration

This is a YA coming of age story complete with a school of magic and a “chosen one.” Kids are “sorted” into specialities and placed into small “combat” teams that was ridiculously like a magical fight club (and the required bully). There is a parallel story about a conflict between werewolves and vampires that was highly predictable and not very interesting … at least until it intersects with the main plot late in the last half of the book. Of course … getting there requires a few time jumps punctuated by child combat to grievous injury et al. Despite all that, there is some character development (as might be expected with the coming of age genre). Bottomline, it was not nearly as interesting as I thought it would be given the premise from the jacket blurb. This was aggravated by the poor narration performance where the performance came across extremely awkward and wooden. It might help if playback speed is bumped up.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#TheUnseenBlade #TheSerpentsHeir #FreeAudiobookCodes #KindleUnlimited

Great book!

Enjoyed it from start to finish. Strong fantasy/anime inspired elements. Likeable main characters. Looking forward to reading more from the author.

Extraordinary powers and the looming mysteries!

"The Unseen Blade" by Ambrose Zack Adams, narrated by Ivan Andres Ley, tells a mesmerizing tale of Lucian Draco's journey into the magical realm. Adams' enchanting prose effortlessly introduces us to a world of secrets and supernatural threats, while Ley's narration adds a captivating dimension. Lucian's discovery of his extraordinary powers and the looming mysteries make this fantasy debut a thrilling ride.

Omg that ending!!!

Well well well... First I have to admit that I wasn’t sure what to think. The Unseen Blade wasn’t exactly like any other story I have read. I won’t say it started out slow, however I also won’t say that the story jumped right in. In a way the author, Ambrose Z. Adams, managed to give all of the information needed in a way that it didn’t drag on.

Now onto the characters! There is a pattern here that you will find. I wasn’t sure about our main male in this story at first. See always unsure. Lucian is actually a great character. He starts out young and excitable and you see his growth while still maintaining his personality that each character falls in love with. His crew is pretty awesome too and their growth also shows, but his is the major difference. The female lead in the story has a dramatic change as well. It’s amazing how it all comes together.

Now I will admit the storyline had me a bit confused at first. It all will come together by the end, however. I’m the beginning you get two totally different storylines that you don’t understand why they are both in the same story. Towards the end of the book you will find exactly how these go together. I wish there was a bit more information to explain some connection towards the beginning because it felt off to wait so long to understand.

Ivan Andres Ley did a great job narrating this story. He brought so much life to the characters. I felt like I was right there experiencing it all with the characters. Each scene was vivid to me. The production was overall great. I don’t recall any problems throughout with the production itself.

I am so glad I gave The Unseen Blade a chance. Ambrose seriously did an amazing job! I can’t wait to read more by this author especially if these characters are included! Seriously this book is an adventure any reader that loves a good paranormal/fantasy will definitely enjoy.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Ambrose Zack Adams. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

Can't wait until the next book

I loved the book. This book is a genre that I enjoy. Im really impressed that this is Ambrose first book. I look forward to seeing what happens next. Respect Ambrose

Great Series

I was given this book for free,

This is a great series, and I can't wait to get into book 2.

Narration was good as well.

Took A Bit To Get Into

Interesting story / plot and beginning of an epic fantasy, this is the first book in the The Serpents Heir series.
While I found Lucian's magic and connection to it fascinating, I started out not really caring for him as a character. As I progressed thru the story, however, I got more into it. But this one was a bit of a slow start for me
Audio narration was enjoyable

Just great

I tried to limit my listening to certain times of the day, however I enjoyed this book so much I couldn't stop listening. Very much looking forward to the rest of the series!

Its really good

Its good its really good was not expecting that at all the ending was goated

Liked it when I thought I wouldn't

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this to provide my honest opinion. Receiving the book for free did not influence my opinion.

I’m giving this book 4 out of 5 stars. BUUUUT…I didn’t feel that way about it at first.

First off, Ivan Andres Ley as the narrator, he’s not bad but his voice feels a little stiff as I listen to him at first. Like he doesn’t really possess the full range of emotion that I’ve come to expect from my audiobook narrators. But then I realized, he only sounds like that when he is narrating the plot main character, Lucien Draco’s words and thoughts. When he does the voices of the other characters, they are very emotional with excellent accents, large range, and it is easy to distinguish between genders and characters. I had completely forgotten for a few chapters that it was only the one narrator because he does such a great job with the voices of the supporting characters. Like WOW!

And then I realized that the reason why the narrator seemed so dry and stiff with Lucien’s voice and the general narration is because that is how Lucien is supposed to be. Lucien is super intelligent and raised to be hyper-rational. It’s not until later in the book that he really starts showing a lot of emotion other than “I’m-so-smart”. In fact, I hated Lucien for his I’m so smart that it is my greatest flaw, kind of situation for most of the book. By halfway through the story I was really only in it for the werewolf heiress that needed to be rescued from vampires because I hated the main character so much.

So, while I was initially underwhelmed by the narrator, I realized that he was actually very good at his job. Maybe too good, since I was hating on the MC and forgot that he had voiced all the other characters as well. I felt almost like this might have been the narrators first book, I wasn’t able to find any other audiobooks attributed to that narrator, and if it was their first, I think it bodes well for their future career that they were so great with their performance in this one. The audio recording itself was very good. No weird sounds, no pops, skips, or awkward pauses.

I’m glad that I listened to this book in audio format. I don’t think I would have enjoyed it or bothered to finish it if I had been reading this as a traditional book. I might have returned it to the store, actually, I was SO annoyed with the main character being extra smart and gifted because of his being the reincarnation of a deity. My teenage son had been listening to the audiobook with me for the first few chapters (we were stuck in traffic) and he actually started referring to it as “that awful book” as in “are you still listening to that awful book”. It’s not an awful book. We just hated the main character for the first few chapters, and he stopped listening before it got interesting.

The book is interesting. The story skips about three years (I think) of the time that Lucien is in a magic school. And that is okay because even though he’s supposedly learned a lot during that time, he doesn’t really do a whole lot of character development until later in the book. I actually grudgingly started to like him toward the end of the book and was devastated when one of the supporting characters died. Not until the last chapter did, I develop an affinity toward him despite enjoying the development of the world very much.

This book is definitely going to be of interest to people who are into series. It’s not a one-off. The story builds slowly. It contains unusual definitions in its magical world that, as far as I know, are unique to this series and will require some concentration to get straight. There’s a surprise twist at the ending that apparently my kid “totally saw coming” when I ran into the kitchen squealing with excitement to tell him about it.

For anyone who sees the main character’s name, Lucien Draco, and that he is attending a magical school; I want to make sure you understand that this is not a “Harry Potter” copycat as far as I can tell. I never read those books so I can’t say for sure anything is super similar, but I did watch all the movies. And after the first couple of chapters of this book, I decided that I was glad my son stopped listening because it’s not really a kid’s book. This is definitely a book for an older crowd.
The story and the character grew on me over the course of the book and by the end, I was disappointed that I don’t have the sequel.

So, definitely a 4 out of 5 stars kind of book.