Red Sister

Book of the Ancestor, Book 1

By: Mark Lawrence

Narrated by: Helen Duff

Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

It's not until you're broken that you find your sharpest edge.

A brilliant new series from the best-selling author of Prince of Thorns.

'I was born for killing - the gods made me to ruin.'

At the Convent of Sweet Mercy, young girls are raised to be killers. In a few the old bloods show, gifting talents rarely seen since the tribes beached their ships on Abeth. Sweet Mercy hones its novices' skills to deadly effect: it takes 10 years to educate a Red Sister in the ways of blade and fist.

But even the mistresses of sword and shadow don't truly understand what they have purchased when Nona Grey is brought to their halls as a bloodstained child of eight, falsely accused of murder - guilty of worse.

©2017 Mark Lawrence (P)2017 HarperCollins Publisher Limited

Critic reviews

"Dark, passionate, tense, with a female hero anyone could relate to - I was utterly fascinated! This is no pretty, flowery tale, but one of vastly different people struggling to survive when a hostile government comes to power." ( New York Times best-selling author Tamora Pierce)
"This is a book very distinct from everything that came before; what it has in common though is a narrative that pulls no punches, and characters that are beautifully, brokenly, repellently, cleverly human." ( Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reviews)
"I had never thought it was possible to find a greater character than the Emperor Jorg Ancrath. I had never even slightly considered that there might be a fantasy world out there toppling that of Τhe Final Empire, and most definitely, I had never thought that I could love a book more than The Night Angel. But here we are." ( BookNest)
"Any other author is going to have to smack the ball way, way out of the park to top this read." ( Parmenion Books)

Interesting world and great action

Very nice story. The kind with which you sometimes stay extra time in your car to finish a chapter.
The world is interesting. The characters are flawed superhumans (a great combination). The action is wonderful with excellent "bullet-time" descriptions.
My only issue is with some the main character's decisions, which kind of serve the narrative in a forced way.
The narration is lovely and rich. well acted. But I sometimes had trouble making out the words. And I felt too many of the characters got a "special" accent.

i haaate the narrator

she is soo quiet, slow and hard to understand. the main character noise is annoting and boyish. i am gonna keep going because hubby says the book is worth it but as someone who finished the entire 17 books of dresden files in 2.5 weeks, i found this really hard to listen to.

You'll never want this story to end

This is a book that, once you start it, grips you with iron hands. My only criticism is the narrator. She has terrible articulation. She merges words and is hard to understand some phrases.

Enjoyable !!

After a few titles with I could not listen to the voice... here we've got a good narrator! not too much haffs and puffs. a good combination of a story plus a story teller :) just bought the next book.

Listen at 1.25 X speed

I had a hard time with the speed and voice of this narration. Putting it on 1.25 speed saved it for me, and after half a book I got used to it.

The story is brilliant!

Amazing!

I love it, the narrator was fantastic and the story intense. I am so glad that the main character, a small girl, was allowed and even encouraged to be angry.

Excellent fantasy story!

Story and performance is in point! The audio is a bit low for some reason, but not so low that you can't hear it when turning up the sound on your phone.

Mark Lawrnece is back on my favourite authors list

As someone who started his fantasy reading career with the poorly aged Broken Empire trilogy, I am delighted to say that this book is at least of the same quality and WILL stand the test of time.

His storytelling has matured and conformed to contemporary needs while retaining it's essential edge. The prose is so evocative it borders on poetic sometimes. Cannot recommend it enough!

Also the narration is great! Idk what everyone else is going on about.

great story

Amazingly crafted piece of fiction. Entwined in the gut wrenching turmoil of a world gone wild. Enjoyed thoroughly. Thanks Mark for great and careful work.

Good read, but wrong narrator

So. This is a good story, but I don't think the narrator was a good fit. In many other books she would be totally fine, but here she is making ten year old children sound like adults.
But over all I enjoyed it and I will get the next book despite that.