Spirit Lake

By: Tamar Hela

Narrated by: Reyna Joy Banks

Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Six teenagers from Northern California are assigned a group project for their sophomore English class. Little do they know, this project will literally take them on a journey out of this world. Cantelia appears much like Earth, until the teens realize magic is as plentiful as the danger surrounding them. A dark and evil ruler has placed a curse on the tribal people of Sikuku Island - the same island where the teens have been transported. Now, they must help the tribal people break the curse if they ever want to see their own planet again. Alex and her companions quickly learn that there is so much more beyond their comfortable lives in Pollock Pines and its legendary Spirit Lake.

©2015 Cosby Media Production (P)2015 Cosby Media Production

Interesting story

The concept that the water transports to another world was really cool. Especially the extremely unique curse that the tribes people faced. I also really liked the idea presented about Godin. The story ends nicely but most definitely suggests there are more books to come (not sure if already published).

As for presentation the reader did a good job however there were sometimes words mispronounced (or maybe regional dialect differences?) as well as pauses that seemed unnatural for fluid speech but didn't really distract too much from the story.

An interesting story

The story is good. The teens are transported to another planet, lift a curse, return home. I expect there will be a book two. I would listen to another book by this author.

The narrators voice is fine. I agree with the other reviewers. The pace is off at times.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

Good story

Fast paced book that was fun to listen to. I loved the blending of a fantasy story full of magic and young people finding out what they are destined for.

Different

In this story, we follow a group of teenagers who are sucked into a magical world through a special body of water. The place they find themselves in is creepy, full of strange beings and an overwhelming sense of evil. That’s when they learn of the curse and go about breaking it.

While the story was engaging, I felt it all was wrapped up a bit too quickly after the curse was broken. It would’ve added to the story tremendously to see exactly what happened to the place after the curse was lifted.

While the narration was okay, it made the book difficult to get into. The words were a bit stilted and the uneven tone made it hard for me to listen. I like to listen to audiobooks at 2.5x their original speed so the gaps were more noticeable for their frequency.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

Spirit Lake

When a group of teens finds themselves in another world, they must find the way to break a curse before they can return home.

Tamar Hela creates an interesting world with an engaging story. There is no cliffhanger, but there is a good setup for the possibility of more stories.

I struggled with the narration of this book. The pace seemed off to me and the gaps and mispronunciations made it a challenge to stay engaged in the story. Speeding up the playback did help a bit.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

A fun Narnia-esque story

I enjoyed this story about a group of teenagers that are transported to a different planet on the other side of the galaxy to help its inhabitants defeat the evil ruler and in doing so lift a curse. The story did wrap up a little too quickly towards the end for my taste and I would have liked to see more of the effects on the planet after the curse had been lifted, but as this is the first book in a series it is to be expected that some information is left to be revealed later on.

This story reminded me of the Chronicles of Narnia books by C.S. Lewis that I read as a kid, and after looking up the author on Goodreads, she does indeed list this as one of her influences as a writer.

While I did like the narrators voice, there were frequent unnatural pauses that made it a little more difficult for me to fully immerse myself in the story, hence the slightly lower rating for the performance.

This audiobook was given to me for free by the publisher at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

I like the story

the story aspect was charming but it seems like it was the first time for this narrator. There were a few awkward pauses and she actually missed pronounce the word arachnid twice in two different ways.

I wasn't able to finish this book.

I received a free copy of this story for an honest review.

I've said this before many times but I have to say it again in regard to this story: A narrator can make or break a story. Plain and simple. In this case, the narrator broke it. While this might be a great story, had I read it myself, I had an audiobook version so, therefore, I listened to it instead. On that note, the narrator was too distracting and because of that, I just couldn't get "into" the story at all. I tried! I hate leaving a bad review for an author when the issue I have has nothing to do with him/her, but it wasn't happening, unfortunately. I'll give 3-star for the story itself, even though I didn't get through it, just because this poor rating in on the narrators part.

What is my issue? Besides the fact the narrator tried to go for a natural-sounding narration, as in she attempted to talk as though she weren't reading from a script (which would have been good), it was SO obvious she was reading. How did I know? Besides the fact, all narrator reads from a script when narrating, in her case, she'd get to the end of one line, do a long pause, and then obviously move to the next line. I'm not sure why she was having such a hard time going from one line to the next, but it was annoying! Very! The other issue I had was the fact I could hear her moving around. I don't know if it was just her repositioning herself, or if it was her chair, but either way, no!