Corruption of the Heart

By: Jessica Manson

Narrated by: Amber Bray

Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's Summary

Lilith Carson is a normal girl whose parents died suddenly. She moves to a different state with her aunt she never knew. When she arrives she cuts herself off from everyone. She longs for friendship but doesn't trust anyone enough to let them in. Until one day when her crush appears beside her in the library. From there, they fell in love fast and hard.

Lilith finds out that when she turns eighteen she will transform into a Vampire-Witch hybrid. When a vampire conceives a female, that female is already chosen a mate for her. When Lilith was conceived there was a mistake. Her world is turned upside down when she must choose between two guys she barely knows.

Lilith has chosen the guy of her dreams and has settled into a life that she thinks is perfect. But nothing is ever as it seems. She will soon face the ultimate betrayal by someone she loves deeply.

©2018 Jessica Manson (P)2019 Kingston Publishing Company

Corruption of the Heart

Things I liked:
- The storyline and set up.
- The mystery, as well as the magic, vampires, paranormal
- The Love Triangle
- The Unique little subplots

Things I didn't like:
- Lilith is super immature and too easily stereotypes the people around her, which fits with the high school mindset, but she's also lacking in common sense and I felt like she didn't grow at all throughout the book.
- There are a lot of instances where Lilith is really rude, or hot tempered, and her initial encounter with Ambi makes her seem very arrogant and snobby. She acts like people aren't allowed to look at her in public like shes a queen, and very standoffish to her supposed "crush" when she speaks with Odin for the first time.
- I can't figure out if she's self conscious or what her deal is but she describes almost everyone else as Cute, or Hot like shes not on their level. But then she turns around and is pushing Odin away like she's too good for him.
- There were other things but mostly this just builds up to me struggling to be able to connect with Lilith

This was an instance where the a good audio could have pulled the book a little bit more for me but the book and audio were both solidly in the middle. I felt that the performance was kind of dry, almost monotone at times, and unnecessarily way over the top at others.

#AudiobookObsession
🎧AudiobookObsession

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Crazy Entertaining

Entertaining and has unique ideas throughout the story. Loved the magical elements and the mystery behind Lilith’s life. Loved the vampire and witch stuff! This doesn’t get 5 stars though because I just didn’t connect with the characters. Lilith is OTT a lot of the time and doesn’t really have much common sense. She’s rude and quick to anger. I was hoping she’d grow throughout the story, but she doesn’t really and is just too weak in many instances. She also has horrible self-awareness and can’t read others well. I don’t know what the heck she’s thinking with Ambi; girl you are crazy to trust her at all! I listened to the audio and the narrator did okay, but was a little stiff. She also made it seem like Lilith was even angrier than necessary. The timing also seemed off with her 18th birthday coming up; it just kept seeming like not enough time passed for it to already be there, but I could’ve missed something. Another knock to the stars, was the scene with Tristan and Gilda; that was just too much eww for me. I don’t like Tristan. I still rooted for Lilith, but I want her to mature quite a lot in the upcoming books. The romance is really sweet; they have a good chemistry. Odin is mostly a sweetheart, and I loved getting a couple chapters from his POV; it really helped me appreciate him more. There’s lots of craziness going on in Lilith’s life, so that kept me reading; this story is definitely not boring! Overall, the story is really interesting; despite the maturity levels of the characters, and I’m really looking forward to reading the next books in this series!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Fun NA PNR

I am a low key sucker for PNR. And this one gets a lot of things right. I like where the story was going. And I would like to see where it goes from here.

There is a lot going on so something is always peaking your interest. I fell pretty head-over-heels for Tristan and I could read a lot more of him. Of course that probably means he is about to meet the big vampire in the sky.

There is plenty of action to break up some of the angsty teen hormones. The new take on vampire lore is interesting and I hope more of that backstory is addressed is subsequent books.

The narrator does a nice job bringing a teenage vampire witch hybrid to life.

🎧AudiobookObsession🎧

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Okay book but with some issues

This book was okay.. I had a few issues but it was an alright book. Lilith's parents die and she moved to a new town with a terrible aunt. She doesn't want friends at school. Until one day a group of kids starts talking to her. She finds out they have been watching her. Here is where my issues with the book start, Lilith is a brat. And I say brat because when I post a review on amazon it won't let me curse. She's honestly so mean it makes me uncomfortable and she over uses Y'all. Just about everything about her annoys me. Odin her "love" interest is the complete opposite. He is so calm and I just don't get it!

Lilith has new powers and she has to learn how to use them. There is danger and intrigue and it's exciting. The story is YA.. there is a lot of sexual tension but it also reads very, very young. The characters are immature. BUT if you can push past that it is entertaining.

I also feel like there should have been a trigger warning. The main female cuts herself. I felt a tad bit blindsided by that and I absolutely thing there should have been a warning in a YA book.

#audiobookobsessionreviewer

Overall, a good start to a cool new world!!

I was given this audiobook for an honest review. I think this is a good start to a super interesting world. This is this author's first series and it's very promising. There were definitely a few flaws but that's to be expected. Mostly the pacing was really weir, way too fast in some places (not giving us enough world building and time to sit with the feelings); however, sometimes it dragged with longish descriptions of useless actions. But putting that aside it was entertaining with a diverse group of characters that I can't wait to learn more about. While a couple of characters were very one dimensional, most had several layers that helped keep it interesting. Now, the narration- it was kinda rough. Everything was majorly over articulated!! This may have worked for a couple of the characters as they were much older vampires; however, an 18 yr old girl living in Maine and originally from Mississippi never talk so proper and crisp. I haven't heard any other work from this narrator so I'm only taking a guess here - but it sounds like she's from the UK, or some place that's not America and is trying to put on an American accent; so, I just think she needs a lot more practice with it so that it'll sound more natural. Now, having said all that - I can't wait to listen to the rest of the series - I'm hooked!! :D

Amber is one of my new favorite narrators!

Great storyline. This was the first time listening to Amber narrating. I loved her voice and did great switching to characters! I hope to hear more books narrated by her!

I struggled with the narration at regular speed.

The narrator does a good male voice. I couldn’t listen at 1.0 speed so I tried to speed it up and this didn’t help me much. I couldn’t get to far into it. Sorry 😐

Horrible narration

I only made it an hour into this book. The narration was garbage. Storyline was mediocre.

Excellent

I really enjoyed this book. Lots of likeable characters. Excellent storyline. Non stop action packed. Oh my, what a cliffhanger!!!! Great narration from Amber.
#audiobookobsessionreviewer

Reviewed for Audiobook Obsession

This PNR starts out very unassuming in the first half, you get bits and pieces of the obscure. When the true scenario finally kicks in you can’t stop listening your waiting for where this author is leading you, to the big reveal (so to speak), but dang it if it doesn’t go to a cliffhanger which I as a listener will eagerly await.
Amber Bray, narrates this story nicely, only wishing she was a little more enthusiastic.