Mrs. Perivale and the Blue Fire Crystal

Mrs. Perivale, Book 1

By: Dash Hoffman

Narrated by: Susan Duerden

Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

"People your age belong at home," 73-year-old Mrs. Perivale is told when she tries to volunteer. With her son grown and gone, and her community turning their backs on her, the gravity of no longer being needed sinks her spirits deeply. She wonders if she has outlived her usefulness until a mystical little creature sneaks into Alice Perivale's home and begs her to come with him; there is a prophecy about her, and she must help save his world!

Finding herself in a magical place she had no idea existed, committed to a dangerous mission far more vital than helping out in her neighborhood, Alice dusts off her courage and bravery, rediscovering the feisty, sassy, powerhouse woman she is deep inside. She is determined to find the stolen Blue Fire Crystal before the imbalance between elements destroys all of the magical land of Coreve. Together with her extraordinary family of six cats and her skeptical-yet-devoted butler Henderson, she takes on the tremendous challenge.

With time running out and the world falling to pieces, Alice's precious companions are pulled away from her, and she is faced with impossible choices. Does she choose what she wants most of all, does she rescue her family, or does she save the world that will not survive without her?

©2017 Angel Canann (P)2021 Tantor

Mrs paraval and the blue crystal

what a merry adventure! plenty of twists and turns, a wonderful voyage to another world!

Incredible adventure

What an incredible adventure. Great narration, wonderful vocal variety! If you are looking to have an adventure through your mind warm your soul and make some friends along the way this is your book.

Exactly as fun as you would expect!

When I saw the add for the story based on a reddit discussion on a "chosen one" being a grandma instead of some angsty teen I had to check it out. The story does not disappoint! I wasn't expecting her whole entourage, but it was a lot of fun to listen to. Highly recommend the book to anyone.

Now for the down side. Susan Duerden's narration drove me batty. Her "narrator voice" has a strange (to me at least) cadence or style. I don't think it is what people call Up-Speak, but it's closely related. It's almost as if every sentence is taken on its own, devoid of context and intentionally made... as dramatic as possible? It's hard to explain, but it reminded me of the movie trailer announcer voice. I would have wrote it off as just a narrator I didn't like, but her character impressions did not do this. This was a conscious choice, and it weirded me out. That said, all of her characters were fantastic, and distinct. She's definitely talented, but the "narrator voice" she chose, which is most of the story, was almost too distracting for me.

Almost. Still worth the listen!

Enjoyable

When I heard there was a fantasy book where the protagonist was a 74 year old woman and all her cats…I couldn’t get this book fast enough!
A refreshing moment of honoring elders instead of always relegating them to being the “wise old woman who imparts knowledge to her youthful grandchild and then dies…and then her body dissipates into ashes or butterflies or whatever”.

I’m not going to go into much detail about whether characters were well developed etc
I do believe that maybe a little more time could have been taken in some places. Not so much because the character was lacking but more because…well…I wanted more.

My own mother is about to be 84. She is in perfect health, takes no meds, has all her own teeth and is full of energy. She has a passel of beloved cats, one of whom is the one who sleeps by her and would go everywhere with her if she could.
Mrs. Perivale could have easily been based off of her and I won’t pretend that this didn’t add to my enjoyment:)

My only major qualm…

I will start with well-earned praise. The narrator does absolutely amazing character voices. She’s an inspiration as I am learning voice acting myself. Just wonderful! Each one distinct and I loved it.
As a student, I did intentionally break myself away from the story enough to really listen to her voices. It is amazing how she made herself disappear and made all these characters appear in her place.

Now for the not so wonderful.

I detest the cadence she chose for the narration parts.
It was odd and as another reviewer mentioned, it’s not quite uptalking, but it’s along those lines. At points, I could hardly listen to it.

I did notice that as the book went on, she did it considerably less and my attention was no longer drawn out of the story.
Maybe she was just trying to find the voice of the narrator but she definitely had everyone else’s voices nailed.

This is a pleasant little fantasy journey with a hero who isn’t a 15 year old “chosen one”.
I have nothing against 15 year old chosen ones, but an old lady as the chosen one?

Take my money, I want to meet her!

AMAZING!!!

loved it!! there better be more, the ending setsup for it!!! such a wonderful light harted journey.

The Narrator Ruined it!

I am struggling to finish this story. It seems fun but the narrator ends EVERY SENTENCE with an upwards inflection and it drives me insane.
I’m probably going to push through it but it is so bad

A good rainy day read

I recall the thread that sparked this book. Well done Dash. Well done. Excellent story, but the reader /narrator was dreadful. She sounded like she was reading stereo instructions.

Targets the Wring Demographic IMO

This is a cute story, but I fear it will get lost in the childrens/young YA sections where there are so many fantasy heroes. I hope this will open the door for a series for and audience of Mrs P’s contemporaries.

This Headline Is Required, Not Optional.

Great reader for a good book, marked down on story because it's a story about cats that was obviously written by a dog person. also a couple redundant lines toward the end, though I could easily forgive those. Anyway, good book for kids, more description than story, so lots of wonder for the imagination.

Delightful

After listening to the story once, I read all the reviews and decided to listen to it again, keeping in mind the critiques.

The biggest criticism was about the reader's voice titling up at the end of sentences. Several people bashed her for this. Personally, I had no problem. It didn't bother me at all. Maybe it's because I grew up in a house with many languages being spoken, but I enjoyed the tilt.

The next criticism was about there being too much description. While, yes, there is quite a lot of description, I enjoyed that, too. I simply lied back and let the author paint pictures for me. The author's imagination was beautiful.

My only complaint was about the villain. I thought he was defeated too easily and wasn't fleshed out enough. But that was addressed at the very end. Now, I can't wait for the second book!!