The Dagger of Adendigaeth

A Pattern of Shadow and Light, Book 2

By: Melissa McPhail

Narrated by: Nick Podehl

Length: 29 hrs

Publisher's Summary

At long last, the reason for the blessed Adept race's decline has been discovered: powerful beings known as Malorin'athgul are disrupting the Balance and preventing Alorin's Adepts from awakening to their gifts. Who are they? Where are they? And how can they be stopped when they wield a power meant to unmake the universe itself?

In T'khendar, Prince Ean val Lorian has forsaken his companions in blood and battle to join the traitorous Fifth Vestal in T'khendar in the hopes of gaining some insight into the tragedies that plagued his return. Now, he must confront the man he's long thought of as his enemy and discover the role he is meant to play in the First Lord's darkly magnificent game.

The Vestal Raine D'Lacourte has followed his traitorous oath-brother, Björn, through six kingdoms and into the distant realm of T'khendar seeking explanation and atonement. But the condemned realm harbors shocking secrets, and Raine soon realizes he's facing his greatest enemy yet - not in Björn, but in the truth.

Elsewhere in Alorin, the young truthreader, Tanis, faces a new villain in the fiery-eyed man he followed from the café in Rethynnea; the soldier Trell struggles to reconcile his growing feelings for the girl he rescued from the river against the guilt of his unknown past; and in Tambarré, another truthreader named Kjieran van Stone treads the incense-filled hallways of the Prophet Bethamin's temple, hoping to uncover a plot of treachery and betrayal before the Prophet demands his soul.

The time has come for each player to claim his role in the First Lord's masterful game. All will be tested, but only time will tell how many can survive the dagger of Adendigaeth.

©2016 Podium Publishing; 2012 Melissa McPhail

Eh This one fell short

Any additional comments?

First off this book is well written however I doubt I'll be continuing on to book three though because of the following:

1 - At some point when you have an author who constantly references rape you start to wonder about them... I lost track of how many times she used the word in this book. When you couple that with the fact that she reached a sadistic level of violence towards her characters I started to be put off. I understand that things aren't always supposed to go right for the characters in a story, no one wants to read a story where everything is right all the time but by the same token everything cant go wrong all the time either or you reach the other end of the spectrum in terms of believability. I mean seriously - how many more times is Alyneri going to be kidnapped?
2 - I love certain aspects of this book. Tannis and the plot surrounding him is probably my favorite.
3 - I finished this book not really feeling like the plot had moved forward much more than where book 1 ended and I cant help but wonder if book 3 will be more unending rape references so again, not sure ill continue but this book was decent and well written...

Too many references to rape and guy on guy for me

As a challenge, someone should count how many times:

1. references to being raped
2. guy on guy romance
3. how often can main characters get kidnapped

The first book was really good (i.e. characters, plot, story, world setup). In book two, everyone changes and fall in love with everyone else. All the women become damsels in distress and all the male characters either don't know what they want or are in love with every other male character. All the villains want to rape everyone and every conversation between characters became an over exaggerated dramatic shakespearean scene.

Good story complexity but simplistic characters

I shouldn't have bought this book as I nearly didn't finish the last one. It"s the lack of character depth that disappoints I think. Most of the players are as multilayered (not) as Prince Charming in a children's fairy story This is especially disappointing when the story itself is so nicely complex but apart from the old crone and the young boy I couldn't give a stuff about most of the people portrayed. if I don't care about the people I can't care about the story.

My foray into this series stops here

Any additional comments?

As others have said, the romances are very fake and stereotypical. "She needed protection, and he wanted to protect her"; she's always laying her head on his strong chest, that kind of stuff. Everything is overdramatized. The heroes suffer like no one has ever suffered, with excruciating pain like they've never felt before, until the next chapter, when the suffering is even worse. Nick Podehl's narration matched this drama, which made me start to be annoyed at him for the overdramatic reading. Also, Nick is not great at female voices, but is awesome with the men. The author uses certain phrases over and over, which start to grate. Characters I was interested in from the first book were completely ignored. They may come back later but I missed them. Liked the first one, but I'm done with this series.

Very good second book!

This is the type of book I search for. A long book that keeps you engaged each moment and makes me listen to it way longer than I should. Great story, great characters, keep those books coming!

Romance author got lost in a scifi book.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Stick with the fantasy aspect and leave out all the romance and sex, the book drops into pure harlequin mode and stays there.

What could Melissa McPhail have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

See above

Have you listened to any of Nick Podehl’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes, very solid reader, he was doing well with what he had.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Dagger of Adendigaeth?

Anything that includes "his loins, inflamed, penetrated her, feverish desire, consumed by thoughts of her.

Any additional comments?

Yeah audible gets this one back, nothing worse than picking up a scifi, and it morphs into a romance. I have two rules for blacklisting a author, Leave a cliffhanger or write a romance and hide it in a scifi cover.

great narration horrible story

There was too much cheesy romance and sexuality. McPhail got so distracted trying to make people sexy that she forgot to give the book a plot. What plot the story does have is scattered and torn. Again McPhail used phrases repeatedly when they are not necessary and they get overused. The magic is awesome and the story could be great but it isn't. It also felt like McPhail was trying to be Ayn Rand and she definitely is not. As always Podehl did an amazing job narrating. He is phenomenal and the only reason I was able to get through this book.

fantastic series.. enjoyable sequel

I read the first book, it was great. A perfect melting pot of dragons, shape shifters, magic, other dimensions, portals, time travel, you name it. The reviews for the second book made me a little unsure, but I risked a credit and it paid off !! The second one unravels whole new layers of complexity and it is soundly built on the first book. So Im wondering, did the reviewers writing the negative reviews about romance/sex etc even read the same book?? And with Nick Poedhl narrating, its even more enjoyable. A book credit well spent.

one of my top 5 series, right up there with Jordan

Definitely one of my favorite series. and Nick Podehl is the icing on the cake. seems like whatever he does is a really great story plus with his storytelling skills I have neelver been letdown. but this one is one of my top 5 series. great magic system, this book actually breaks it down and explains how it works

Characters lacking conviction

The story the system of magic and the intricacy of the book especially the first one interested me. I became invested in the characters even though the first third of the first book was really slow to get started looking forward to the second one the characters I enjoyed from the first book were largely left alone or dramatically changed their trajectory and this is where the book lost me. When a character professes their undying love and then 180s that and not one but two different instances I'm over it. I may be biased I enjoy the love story as much as the substance of books and this one didn't break my heart or make me feel it just didn't make any damn sense. I'll be returning the book.

Great world, clunky writing

Top marks for world building, interesting characters and plot development. A couple of week areas, e.g. There aren't many details of what/why/how the magic works nor how the characters learn it, and every scenario is wrung out for maximum possible impact which gets to be a bit much as it all becomes obvious long before the characters get around to realising/saying it. My main gripe is the language - I've never seen or heard 'thusly' used so often in prose and in my opinion it makes what is quite an interesting story overly dramatic and a bit too self important. I will probably buy the next audio book in a couple of months when I can't find anything else I'd like to get with my audible subscription.

amazing

Where does The Dagger of Adendigaeth rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

High any book I would listen to again rates high there are so many plot lines running through the story

What did you like best about this story?

when Tanis was asking the Captain about selling the horse I was actually laughing

What about Nick Podehl’s performance did you like?

fantastic narration

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

no its like game of Thrones in the depth of Character and depth of story lines it can be quite intense but if I had a few days off work I may have listened in one go.

Any additional comments?

CANNOT WAIT FOR BOOK 3

Pawns

Alliances, it seems, are made to be broken! Characters are growing and the world is continuing to build. This is turning out to be an epic fantasy which I nearly missed!

We now learn who is disrupting the balance.

Ean has travelled to T’khendar and has joined with Bjorn van Gelderan, as has Raine D’Lacourte, who has much to regret, and much to fear in accepting the truth.

Trell is walking his own path, which is fraught with danger and pain. Kjieran will make the ultimate sacrifice to save his soul. Eshot will finally learn who he really is and the Sundragons will show they really are not as bad as they are made out to be.

New players are about to enter and all will face their ultimate test; only the strong, the believers will survive.

I think my favourite character(s) in this series must be Trell and Gendaia, his Hallovian horse. The character I dislike the most has to be Ean.

Great book, great performance.

Nick Podehl is an amazing performer and makes this book really come to life. This book is a great continuation of the series.

It manages to do that thing of having multiple story lines that whenever it makes the switch I want to keep with the current one, until the end of the next one where I want that to continue instead.

Outstanding

Totally spellbound & compelled to Finish what I started. So many twists and turns to keep one occupied

Good book

I have over 300 audible titles and I have to say that the narration and performance of this book is one of the best I've heard. It's a compelling universe with a great story and awesome characters. I can't wait for a sequel.

pseudo-fantasy soap opera

After struggling with the first book owing to its paper-thin plot, aimless mini-episodic meandering, and mangling of language and grammar I decided to give this series the benefit of the doubt and see if things started to come together in the second one.

But it's more of the same.

Even the fantasy is fake with cultures and languages lifted straight from real life. The heroine is repeatedly rescued by the one-dimensional heroes in pointless excursions from the barely discernible plot. The relationships are those of pre-pubescent magazine stories. The way that english language is tortured by the misuse of words is grating and the authors use of pet phrases gets more and more irritating every time they come up.

Very little actually happens in terms of developing the story.

It's pseudo-fantasy soap opera and absolutely NOT recommended.

Good plot fundamentals, poor execution

I’ve found listening to this book very frustrating. Underlying the series is an interesting, intricate plot set in world rich in magic and dragons, powerful races and a variety of cultures which keeps you wanting to read more.

The execution of too much of the book is, however, adolescent, clumsy and derivative. The characters are shallow stereotypes without the intricacies of human nature that keep things interesting. The descriptions of emotions from love to lust, from hatred to self-depreciation and all of the more extreme emotions are handled with all of the sensitivity of a weepy, naive 15 year old and the total lack of creativity with regards to the languages of the races, instead using French, Italian etc and grammatically incorrectly at that, is disappointing to say the least.

All of this contributes to the narration of the story being clumsy. The lack of character nuance leads to the different people you meet being presented by the narrator as bloated caricatures of themselves, tending to the whiny and overly dramatic and gives the reading a cartoonish feel

Oh, and for pity’s sake, PLEASE learn some synonyms for “gaze”

When you’ve exhausted the other fine fantasy readings on here (Brandon Sanderson for example) then listen to these but not before

Amazing story with a Great narrator!

Nick Podehl really brings Melissa's many characters to life! I also really appreciate the very minimal errors and the continuity of the characters voices both between Cephraels hand and The Dagger of Adendigaeth, and throughout the book. Highly recommended for any fantasy fans!

Horrendous ending

Everything was great up till the last 15 minutes, talk about a contrived ending, I'll not be going on to book 3