Beasts of the Frozen Sun

By: Jill Criswell

Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins, Tim Campbell

Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's Summary

Burn brightly. Love fiercely. For all else is dust.

Every child of Glasnith learns the last words of Aillira, the god-gifted mortal whose doomed love affair sparked a war of gods and men, and Lira of clan Stone knows the story better than most. As a descendant of Aillira and god-gifted in her own right, she has the power to read people's souls, to see someone's true essence with only a touch of her hand.

When a golden-haired warrior washes up on the shores of her homeland - one of the fearful marauders from the land of the Frozen Sun - Lira helps the wounded man instead of turning him in. After reading his soul, she realizes Reyker is different than his brethren who attack the coasts of Glasnith. He confides in her that he's been cursed with what his people call battle-madness, forced to fight for the warlord known as the Dragon, a powerful tyrant determined to reignite the ancient war that Aillira started.

As Lira and Reyker form a bond forbidden by both their clans, the wrath of the Dragon falls upon them and all of Glasnith, and Lira finds herself facing the same tragic fate as her ancestor. The battle for Lira's life, for Reyker's soul, and for their peoples' freedom has only just begun....

©2019 Jill Criswell (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Super solid and compelling book.

A great read, I managed to burn through it pretty quick on my commute. The voice acting is a little hard to get behind sometimes but it was really enjoyable. Outstanding piece of work Jill-o.

Enjoyed the story, but hard to listen to.

I love the story and can't wait to see how it develops even further in the next book. My only frustration was with the narrators. The male spoke so fast most the time it was hard to keep up with him and the female sounded almost as if she was trying to sing the whole book and it was rather distracting. Mind you she has a lovely voice and they both did beautiful accents and distinct voices for different characters which I love, but her constant up and down and improper emphasis was frustrating.

Good premise and world building... but then

This is the kind of book that would have benefited from a few more rounds of workshopping. There were some highlights that kept me going, and there were few scenes that stood out, but the novel doesn’t know what to do with its characters after a certain point. The action is bountiful, geared for maximum drama, but often unfocused, unpinned from the plot, tripping towards an ending that was basically: “will things work out for our couple? Will the villain ever be defeated? Tune in next time...” The book is a study on the diminishing returns of bad things happening nonstop in a book. It was hard to feel anything towards the end but vaguely insulted. The plot twists are so overdone that I didn’t even register them as anything was self-evident until the main characters were like... “wait... that one thing way back was not what it seemed? Gasp!” Which is too bad, because I felt there was a lot of potential here. Three stars, because writing a novel is f^*king hard, and the author puts a lot of effort into dialogue, sentence structure, and world building.

Book could be great? The woman’s narration is distracting

This is the second book I’ve tried to listen to with this narrator and I can’t finish it. She emphasizes the most mundane parts of the story and it’s totally distracting

Absolutely loved this book! Can’t wait for book 2

Amazingly Interesting story great. I’m a sucker for deep love connections. I loved all the visuals I imagined. I’m definitely not a young reader but am so glad I gave this book a listen. I also loved the both narrators and her accent, made the story really come alive. I enjoyed getting the different prospectives of the main characters. Thanks Jill this is definitely a keeper, please keep them coming.