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Shadowplay  By  cover art

Shadowplay

By: Terry Mancour, Emily Burch Harris
Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham
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Publisher's summary

From the world of Spellmonger...blessed darkness conceal her!

Born into a mysterious family, Gatina always knew there was something special about those around her. But when the duke and duchess of Alshar - close friends of her family - are brutally assassinated, her idyllic countryside life is upended by secrets emerging from the shadows.

The family she knew proved to be more than mere Alshari Coastlords and occasional magi, as she once believed. For centuries, her ancient and distinguished House has been secretly both Shadowmagi and highly skilled thieves. With a devious count seeking to capitalize on the assassination, the future stability and peace of Alshar hinges on Gatina learning both arts.

Slavery and piracy loom malevolently in the distance as the Count allies himself with a merciless criminal organization to seize power.

Gatina’s House has vowed to stand against the rising tide of wickedness - no matter how hopeless the task may seem. Working in secret beneath the tutelage of an enigmatic and mysterious master, Gatina finds herself disguised as a street orphan. She runs the filthy gutters of Falas as she puts her training into practice amid the dismal reality of its most destitute neighborhoods.

Brutal thugs, violent riots, cunning soldiers, and the constant threat of discovery by the Count and his allies, all put Gatina’s life at risk as she struggles in secret against the rising tyrant.

For as the blessed darkness conceals her movements by night, she and the Brotherhood engage in a clandestine struggle, something much more deadly than mere...shadowplay.

©2021 Terry Mancour (P)2021 Podium Audio

What listeners say about Shadowplay

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Where to start?

So this is a great book. It makes the character of Gatina make quite a bit more sense in the other spellmonger books, and is just generally good on its own.

What isn't good is the nigh Constant mispronounciation of important people, places, and things.

It's pronounced "Fal-as" not "Fel-as".
It's pronounced "Trig" not "treg".
Magocracy is pronounced with a soft g, not a hard g.
It's pronounced "eer-ee-oh-nite" not "eye-ree-uh-nite".

Did no one bother to check her pronunciations against the pronunciations already established by the other audiobooks? It might seem minor to some but to others, like me, it's absolutely maddening and immersion breaking. And the ones I've listed are just the most common ones.

I love the Spellmonger series, and this was a great book, but the voice acting entirely ruined it for me.

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135 people found this helpful

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The story seemes compelling but narrator ruins it

I have been looking forward to a story on Gatina for a while now so I was excited to get shadowplay but the narrator reads it so fast I had to check and make sure I hadn't accidentally sped it up. It like she just wants to read it and be done with it which is very disappointing. she also mispronounces several names and locations as if there was no collaboration with the author or John Lee, the reader of the main series, to establish and keep a consistent standard. Lastly her inflection is all over the place as if she reads each word by itself with no regard for the rest of the sentence and each sentence without regard to the following or preceeding one. Her overall reading is very monotone something I attribute to her trying to read with an air of "prim and proper",which makes sense for the main character, but makes the overall presentation suffer for it. I would like to see the redone where she takes her time to give each sentence the time and gravity it deserves, perhaps she should listen to John Lee's readings for an example of the impact it has on the experience.

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66 people found this helpful

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Not what I was hoping for.

My original review was taken down for some reason. Here it is again:

I'm starting this review off by stating that this book CAN be skipped in relation to the Spellmonger series. It pertains very little to the main storyline and actually doesn't offer much of interest anyway. I should say that I'm not a side-story hater by default. I truly enjoyed the previous publication, The Wizards of Sevendor.

The main character is a young version of a character trope that has the initials of M.S. and the story is set at the very beginning of the Spellmonger timeline. This bothered me because the story lacks any meaningful or new insights on the main storyline as a whole and isn't that interesting in its own right. The authors throw us a bone with some mildly interesting info about the Coastlords, but that's about it.

It's difficult to be brought so far back in the story and have to suffer through such a bland introduction to a new side character arc. Almost nobody uses magic, and the style of storytelling felt uninspired. Although I dislike being dragged back to the beginning like this, new readers could theoretically start fresh here. However, I don't feel this book is the best start to the timeline.

Annoyingly, the main character happens to consistently break the rules in such a perfect way that she is able to almost accidentally produce results that outclass her trained counterparts.

The writing style felt more basic than normal as well. Almost as though it's a YA novel. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book, but I wouldn't recommend staying away simply because it is actually listenable.

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43 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Love the Alshar, Wincing at this Performance

I don’t think Fiona bothered to listen to the prior work and the canonical pronunciation… She also believes that to make a masculine voice, she must speak 10-20% louder and pompously…
Wishing John Lee had been hired for this.

Story seems banal and very expository at the start, which is ok, and probably exacerbated by the dreadful performance.

But, I love this world and really enjoy Gatina in the other books, so I’ll muddle through…

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35 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Inconstant pronunciation from narrator.

Fiona got a problem with the pronunciation of names in particular. 1 name can get changes from even if they are said withing the same min. There is also some gender swapping going on.. not sure if this is lazy editing or the narrator.

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22 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Fell short

I’m sad to say I didn’t enjoy this side story, which is unfortunate because I really wanted to dive deep on this side of the Spellmonger world.

With a long-established story and narrations, minor changes can make or break it for me when it comes to a different narrator. Fiona is a decent narrator, a little fast at times, and can be uninspiring due to more reading a story than telling a story, but always a consistent and clear voice which I value most. Unfortunately, she falls short, in my opinion, by not keeping consistent pronunciations with the last 10+ Spellmonger audiobooks. I’m not sure if it is due to a lack of care for the series (something very concerning if so) or a desire to “do her own thing,” but it doesn’t work (see other reviews). It’s just too jarring and mentally interrupting that it leaves a sour taste. Resulting in an overall forced listen-to experience for me.

As for the story, not near as deep and full of lore secrets as I had hoped, very much a young adult novel, almost children’s book writing at times. Not bad, not great. It wasn't helpful that starts at the end of Warmage, so there's a lot of redundant information. I think starting alongside Knight's Magi would be the better choice with the first meeting with Tyndal and Rondal. Compared to the rest of the series, not sure if this side series will be worth reading if the following books follow the same path.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Why change the pronunciation of key words?

Everything about it is great except for the changes in pronunciation for the city and other few small things, but it did kinda felt wrong every time...

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17 people found this helpful

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If it was supposed to be a children’s book I don’t notice

I suspect if I was a 10-year-old girl, I would really enjoy the story. However, as I am not I did not. It read like an old Hardy boys book, but from a little girl’s perspective. If that is okay for you, go with it. Obviously not a Terry Mancour written book.

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More Spellmonger Fun

Since I first discovered the Spellmonger series, I've made it a tradition to take a day off work when a new one comes out. It's like an erratically scheduled Yule that happens several times a year. Knowing ahead of time this one was a collaboration, a shorter title and one that wasn't being narrated by John Lee, I almost decided to break with tradition. I'm so glad I didn't. The story is fun, well written and expertly narrated. Now I'm looking forward to the next installment as much as I'm looking forward to trying to figure out how to get Archmage Terry to bring gifts down my chimney next holiday season. Perhaps a bribe from my local fromagerie...

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Great story, Questionable narration.

As one who loves this world and all the characters in it, I greatly enjoyed learning the perspective and experiences of this very interesting family. The collaboration was a success as I didn't detect any change in "voice" the story is told through. That being said, somebody seriously dropped the ball when it comes to the Audible recording . While the voice actor fit the part and has an enjoyable presentation, the number of words she mispronounced is hard to fathom. I can't imagine how this was allowed to happen. Was there no editor? Did the author not listen before releasing to the public? It may seem a small thing, but I've listened to this series over a dozen times start to finish and it can be quite jarring and break immersion. Overall, if you're really into this series, it's definitely worth a listen, just be prepared.

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