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Royal Assassin
- The Farseer Trilogy, Book 2
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 29 hrs and 17 mins
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Young Fitz, the illegitimate son of the noble Prince Chivalry, is ignored by all royalty except the devious King Shrewd, who has had him tutored him in the dark arts of the assassin. He has barely survived his first, soul-shattering mission, and when he returns to the court, he is thrown headfirst into the tumult of royal life.
With the king near death, and Fitz's only ally off on a seemingly hopeless quest, the throne itself is threatened.
Meanwhile, the treacherous Red Ship Raiders have renewed their attacks on the Six Duchies, slaughtering the inhabitants of entire seaside towns. In this time of great peril, it soon becomes clear that the fate of the kingdom may rest in Fitz's hands - and his role in its salvation may require the ultimate sacrifice.
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By: Elizabeth Moon
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Come Back to Me
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After centuries of conflict, a peace treaty has finally been drawn between the warring Saxons and Norse—largely due to the wisdom and bravery of the legendary Viking leader Wolf Hakonson and the noble warrior Lord Hawk. Hawk and Wolf each married women from warring clans to unite the Saxons and Norse. But for all its blessings, the promise of peace will remain fragile—unless it can be sealed forever by a third and final marriage between these two proud clans.
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bodice ripper; thin on authentic history
- By Elizabeth on 12-21-04
By: Josie Litton
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Magic Casement
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- By: Dave Duncan
- Narrated by: Mil Nicholson
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
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Princess Inos lived an idyllic life in her fathers' sleepy, backwater kingdom, and she was best friends with her childhood companion, the stableboy, Rap. But when a prophecy seemed to say Inos should be married, she was exiled to the Impire to learn to be a lady. She was far away when Rap's magical talents began to emerge, and it was he who told her of the fate awaiting them both.
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One of my favorite Fantasy Series
- By Sean Dustman on 10-12-12
By: Dave Duncan
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Gwenhwyfar
- The White Spirit (A Novel of King Arthur)
- By: Mercedes Lackey
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
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Gwenhwyfar moves in a world where gods walk among their pagan worshipers, where nebulous visions warn of future perils, and where there are two paths for a woman: the path of the Blessing or the rarer path of the Warrior. Gwenhwyfar chooses the latter, giving up the power that she is born into. Yet the daughter of a king is never truly free to follow her own calling.
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Good Book, Distracting Narrator
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By: Mercedes Lackey
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Kushiel's Dart
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The land of Terre d'Ange is a place of unsurpassing beauty and grace. It is said that angels found the land and saw it was good...and the ensuing race that rose from the seed of angels and men live by one simple rule: Love as thou wilt.
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The Kushiel series in order
- By Glen Gaines on 10-27-09
By: Jacqueline Carey
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Cephrael's Hand
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In Alorin...300 years after the genocidal Adept Wars, the realm is dying, and the blessed Adept race dies with it. One man holds the secret to reverting this decline: Bjorn van Gelderan, a dangerous and enigmatic man whose shocking betrayal three centuries past earned him a traitor's brand. It is the Adept Vestal Raine D'Lacourte's mission to learn what Bjorn knows in the hope of salvaging his race. But first he'll have to find him....
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This is a great book!!!
- By Dason on 07-30-16
By: Melissa McPhail
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Daughter of the Forest
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Lovely Sorcha is the seventh child and only daughter of Lord Colum of Sevenwaters. Bereft of a mother, she is comforted by her six brothers who love and protect her. Sorcha is the light in their lives and they are determined that she know only contentment. But Sorcha's joy is shattered when her father is bewitched by his new wife, an evil enchantress who binds her brothers with a terrible spell, a spell which only Sorcha can lift - by staying silent.
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Compelling story--but only at 1.5x
- By barefoot rabbit on 09-09-13
By: Juliet Marillier
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Empress
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In a family torn apart by poverty and violence, Hekat is no more than an unwanted mouth to feed, worth only a few coins from a passing slave trader. But Hekat was not born to be a slave. For her, a different path has been chosen. It is a path that will take her from stinking back alleys to the house of her God, from blood-drenched battlefields to the glittering palaces of Mijak. This is the story of Hekat, slave to no man.
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depressing and left me feeling empty
- By Bonnie on 09-16-09
By: Karen Miller
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Shadowmarch
- Shadowmarch, Volume I
- By: Tad Williams
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 29 hrs and 19 mins
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For generations the misty Shadowline has marked the boundary between the lands of men and the lost northern lands that are the lair of their inhuman enemies, the ageless Qar. But now that boundary line is moving outward, threatening to engulf the northernmost land in which humans still live - the kingdom of Southmarch.
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It's the characters that matter...
- By JC on 11-09-10
By: Tad Williams
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A Shadow in Summer
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- By: Daniel Abraham
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
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The powerful city-state of Saraykeht is a bastion of peace and culture, a major center of commerce and trade. Its economy depends on the power of the captive spirit Seedless, an and at bound to the poet-sorcerer Heshai for life. Enter the Galts, an empire committed to laying waste to all lands with their ferocious army. Saraykeht has always been too strong for the Galts to attack, but now they see an opportunity.
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REALLY Hard to Rate!
- By Trip Williams on 04-27-15
By: Daniel Abraham
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Bury the Living
- The Revolutionary Series, Book 1
- By: Jodi McIsaac
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins
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Rebellion has always been in the O'Reilly family's blood. So when faced with the tragic death of her brother during Northern Ireland's infamous Troubles, a teenage Nora joined the IRA to fight for her country's freedom. Now, more than a decade later, Nora is haunted by both her past and vivid dreams of a man she has never met. When she is given a relic belonging to Brigid of Kildare, patron saint of Ireland, the mystical artifact transports her back eighty years - to the height of Ireland's brutal civil war.
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Great Narrator
- By Sandra on 09-29-22
By: Jodi McIsaac
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On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.
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What listeners say about Royal Assassin
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- John
- 04-30-12
Utterly Frustrating
Soooo... you're an assassin. You've been trained to be both invisible and deadly. Not only are you an animal with a hand-axe, you've also got the ability to talk with wolves, dogs, horses, and whatever animal you wish. You swear loyalty to a prince, and watch as his ambitious younger brother connives to murder their father, usurp your prince's crown, bring ruination to his wife's reputation and sit idly by while evil magic pirates turn your citizenry into zombies (I know, right?)
BUT HERE'S THE THING! Nobody, and I mean, NOBODY, tells you to kill him. In fact, everyone says, for some reason, that killing him is the one thing you absolutely cannot do. Ever. Full stop. Even if, say, you're an incredibly skilled assassin and can make it seem like he died of dysentery, tuberculosis, a venereal disease, or (right, I can talk to animals) being mauled by a bear, YOU CAN'T KILL HIM JUST BECAUSE.
BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE. Even though you, your friends, your king, your assassination teacher, the court jester and the horse trainer all KNOW that he deserves to die in a cosmic justice kind of sense, and they all KNOW that he NEEDS to die in a sort of "let's save the townfolk from becoming magic-pirate zombies" way, they SWEAR they'll betray every single one of your secrets or abandon you completely if you so much as raise a hand to the task. What's more is they keep asking you to save them from whatever dumb mistakes THEY'VE made in the past.
So instead of saying, "Chill out, guys, I'll take the fall for this one. When the new prince takes power, he can pardon me of my crimes or whatever. Or he can exile me. No biggs," you go along with it. All of it. With only a minimal amount of frustration and anger. Simply a morose acceptance of "that's how things are."
Tell me that this is the way things would actually go down. Do it. Tell me. I am OKAY with gritty realism in fantasy. I am OKAY with morally gray characters. I'm hip with Banks, KJ Parker, and Joe Abercrombie. I get it. I do. But when EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER on the side of good (which totally and unquestionably EXISTS in this tale) acts like a complete LOON. Well, then, you have given me ample reason to never finish this series.
RRRRGGHHH!!!!
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Overall
- Jake
- 05-29-10
Solid Middle Book
The problem with writing an entire book from a single perspective is that if the character fails to notice/understand something the reader does there is usually very little excuse for it besides stupidity/thickness. The reader possesses little or no outside knowledge but the character fails to make connections - this can become frustrating. Part of the problem is, I think, the reader (or perhaps the tone of the narrator, who is the main character but older) - it makes it hard to remember the character's age and lack of experience. That said, if you can keep your perspective this probably wont bother you too much.
This book has a great deal of plot development, but manages to leave us completely up in the air as to what direction the next book will take. As many questions are answered as generated. The romantic angle is hit especially hard - I was expecting the typical cycle of "fall in love, discover its doomed, succeed despite the odds and live happily ever after" but its more like "fall in love, doomed, more doomed, miracle, seriously doomed, screw it we're doing it anyway, DOOM, all is lost, oh look there are other girls, oh wait maybe not..." - poor guy gets the rug pulled out from under him over and over and over. The romantic angle is never my favorite, but at least this one has some variation (and I'm pretty sure its 90% done with for this series).
All in all this is a fairly massive setup for the third book, all the stages are set for something to happen - I just have no idea what.
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- Jim "The Impatient"
- 12-06-12
Got Wit!!
As the title says this is #2 in the series. If you have not read book #1 you will not enjoy this book. Book one, develops the main characters and if you start here you will think he is some whinny sick boy. You must read book one to understand the characters.
If you have read book one, then you are in for a treat. When I first read this series I actually liked the second book better then the first. In this book there is less of Chade and more of the Fool. There is more about the wit, a talent I believe would be great to have. Fitz starts the story out sick and pretty much stays sick and hurt throughout the book. Regal has a bigger meaner part in this and Verity leaves Buck Keep.
Like most of Hobb's books you really get caught up in the lives of these people. Hobb does better character development then anyone I know. For the second reading this did get a little long, yet I still enjoyed it, though not as much as the first time. All of Hobb's characters are flawed, even though the leading character tries hard to do well. I did get a little frustrated with the way Fitz treated Molly. If I had been in the same situation I am sure I would have chosen the girl over the King, but I am not Fitz.
The Liveship series is my favorite series by anyone and then Hobb's Forrest Mage series and then this series. I hope to soon complete the Dragon series, which may bump this series down to 4th place.
I have also started to enjoy reading Hobb's first books, written under the name of Megan Lindholm, I hope they come out on audible.
Narrator is excellent.
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16 people found this helpful
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- Devontay
- 05-23-17
Absolutely frustrating
This has got to be the most frustrating piece of fiction I've read in a long time!! There is a clear line of of good and evil. Nothing new there but the foolish, naivety of the characters to properly deal with their foes is astounding. Instead, they continuously turn a blind eye to all their plots and schemes. In fact, they take it one step further and grant their foes every opportunity to take advantage of them and yet seem to manage shock and surprise at the outcome. This book left me baffled. I didn't even want to finish it.
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15 people found this helpful
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- Stacie R
- 03-29-18
A story not worth telling
Any additional comments?
Robin Hobb is a great writer and the narrator is amazing but this story is horrible. The protagonist is not a character worth writing about. I wanted to like him but he repeatedly makes the worst decisions and frankly deserves all that happens to him. Nothing about him is heroic or even interesting. Everyone that he cares about is harassed and killed and he does nothing about it. I just don't think that anyone but a coward or an idiot would act the way he does. Even his pet wolf is smarter than he is.
The villain is stupid too but not one person tries to stop anything he does. The whole story is just frustrating. It sucks I wasted so much time in these books before returning them.
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13 people found this helpful
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- corban
- 08-24-18
whine whine whine
The main characters whine and whine and whine and whine and OH. My. God! More whining!
This series has such great potential which is why I even gave the second book a chance but there's hardly any intrigue, or action or anything other than a bunch of whining. The good stuff is in there but you have to slog through so much bitching and moaning and whining that it's hardly worth it.
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-23-10
Enjoyed it before, loved it now
I have read the whole trilogy before (a few times) and enjoyed the books. I definitely loved listening to the first two books of this series and hope that the third one also gets picked up by Audible. Fitz is so endearing to the listener that you cannot help but get lost in the story.
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- Gwen
- 06-13-10
Poeticly Written
This series has been one of my favorites for years. I have read them over and over again. It is a joy to listen to one of my old favorites while doing chores around the house or cooking in the kitchen. The writing, to me, it beautiful, the characters poetically described. I love these books.
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- M. Roper
- 06-25-18
Mediocre story
Simply put: this story follows the tropes of other sequels. After building up and growing out the main characters in the first story, most authors must then create a new, unique challenge or else figure out how to take away the MC’s power. In this case, the author choose to take away everyone’s ability to make a logical/rational decision. The author’s choices intended to prolong and grow the climatic action left me agitated. I have rarely been as frustrated with main characters, who continued to make the same poor decisions in this book as the first. I wanted to root for a single character but in the end, they were too flawed and too incapable to find interesting (except the Wit, who I enjoyed reading about each time he showed up). Everyone got what they deserved.
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- Rick
- 06-05-17
Well crafted characters but everything else is awful.
Hobb does an excellent job of creating interesting fleshed out characters. However, the plot and story do those characters no service.
This is a very very long book and yet, in a way, almost nothing happens in it. There are some important events but Hobb is more concerned with the daily lives and slow changes in the relationships of her characters than with the attempted usurpation of the throne the story is ostensibly about. This is a huge problem because while those relationships can be interesting for a time it eventually becomes clear that everything that goes wrong is because of the good characters' inaction. The main character knows what the villain's plan is and throughout the story either chooses to do nothing to stop it or is told to do nothing by his superiors. So when bad things happen it was impossible for me to feel bad for him because he'd done nothing to prevent them.
This book is awful from all points but one. The characters. But if the villain wins because of the main characters staggering incompetence and an utter lack of attempts to stop him, good characters are not a saving grace. I turned on them long before the story ended because of their stupidity and refusal to do event the slightest thing to hinder the villain. I only completed the book out of obligation.
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