Silent Queen

Shattering of the Nocturnai, Book 0.5

By: Carrie Summers

Narrated by: Khristine Hvam

Words have power - everyone knows that.

What few realize is the power that lies in silence. Incapable of speech, Leesa lived in isolated silence for 16 years. But now she’s met Eron. Through an inexplicable ability, her beloved can hear her thoughts. A member of a clandestine renegade group, Eron plans to free their city from tyranny. Unfortunately, when Leesa’s mistake exposes him, Eron is thrown in prison for life. Leesa will do anything to free her beloved. But when disquieting magic, backstabbing politics, and a shocking murder complicate her quest, she may face the same fate as Eron...or worse: the gallows.

©2016 Carrie Summers (P)2021 Podium Audio

Ended oddly

I thought it ended with a lot of vague indications about the characters and its unclear what order the series proceeds. I wish audible would make that available to folks like scribd does. Definitely worth a free listen but i might not buy it otherwise.

This audio book will have you hooked

Love this short novella. Love the narrator. Khristine even more. This story is all about revenge , saving the person you love and even though you don’t know where it’s coming always look for pay back

Khristne is one of my favourite performers. I usually finish hers in a day

good

It had me super hooked and I just needed more. I am definitely going to read book 1! You can tell this is setting you up for book 1. sooo good.

Too convoluted for a novella

This needed to have far less plots and concepts or more length than 2.5 hrs. There was too much politics, new terminology, and unexplained magic to understand what was going on. If prequels are meant to tease us into getting book 1, this one failed.

Near as I could decipher:
Part 1: Mute, illiterate Leesa messes up and gets her friend imprisoned for treason. Leesa has a plan to go from kitchen servant to “sentinel” to Ashirel, royal daughter, to somehow save her imprisoned friend?
Part 2: Months? Years later? Leesa gets included in an ocean voyage to volcanic Iolene, where the group discovers a mysterious relic. There’s backstabbing and political machinations between power houses and concerning some sort of night magic.
Part 3: Years later, Leesa is now a power player, and frees her friend. Huh?

Other random observations:
Hvam’s narration is stellar, as always. The writing makes it hard to tell inner monologue from the rest of the story- and there’s a lot of inner monologue due to the whole “mute” plot. The main bad guy is 100% bad, which makes him a less compelling, one-note caricature (he also scrapes his finger along faces a lot for such a short book).