-
The Forty Rules of Love
- A Novel of Rumi
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
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The Forty Rules of Love
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Publisher's summary
In this follow-up to her acclaimed 2007 novel The Bastard of Istanbul, Turkish author Elif Shafak unfolds two tantalizing parallel narratives---one contemporary and the other set in the 13th century, when Rumi encountered his spiritual mentor, the whirling dervish known as Shams of Tabriz---that together incarnate the poet's timeless message of love.
Ella Rubenstein is 40 years old and unhappily married when she takes a job as a reader for a literary agent. Her first assignment is to read and report on Sweet Blasphemy, a novel written by a man named Aziz Zahara. Ella is mesmerized by his tale of Shams' search for Rumi and the dervish's role in transforming the successful but unhappy cleric into a committed mystic, passionate poet, and advocate of love. She is also taken with Shams's lessons, or rules, which offer insight into an ancient philosophy based on the unity of all people and religions, and the presence of love in each and every one of us. As she reads on, she realizes that Rumi's story mirrors her own and that Zahara---like Shams---has come to set her free.
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Editorial reviews
Laural Merlington’s talent for vocal transformation makes The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi by best-selling Turkish novelist Elif Shafak a spellbinding experience. Merlington deftly and clearly moves between American characters living in Northampton, MA, in 2008 and 13th-century townspeople of Konya, Turkey, giving all depth, emotion, and personality.
The Forty Rules of Love jumps back and forth between the two time periods as Ella, a 40-year-old American housewife and mother of three, begins to wade back into the work force by taking a job reading manuscript submissions for a literary agency. Her first assignment, a story of the relationship between the mysterious 13th-century Sufi, Shams of Tabriz, and the Islamic scholar, Jalal al-Din Rumi (now world renown as the Sufi poet Rumi), becomes the catalyst for changes well beyond Ella’s desire to work outside the home. Ella finds herself drawn to the manuscript’s author, Aziz Zahara, a peripatetic Scottish photographer and Sufi, seeking out the author through email. As the online friendship between Ella and Aziz escalates, the manuscript Aziz has written begins to shake Ella loose from the conventional moorings that she has, for decades, assured herself complete her life.
While Merlington easily gives voice to Ella’s snarky teen-aged children and distant husband, her talents shine as she moves to the book’s characters from 13th-century Turkey. The listening experience borders on magical as Jackal Head, a mercenary assassin, Desert Rose, a young woman forced into prostitution, and Suleiman, the village drunk, share their stories. However, it is the depiction of Shams of Tabriz, a wandering dervish searching the land for his soul’s companion, and Rumi, the scholar blindsided by this itinerant spiritual seeker, that shapes the rich world of The Forty Rules of Love. There is bewilderment in the voice of Jalal al-Din Rumi as he attempts to reconcile his connection to the dervish who has entered the scholar’s well-ordered world. It can be heard in the voice of Shams that he knowingly traverses a deadly path as he expresses his Sufi faith in the ultimate power of love while testing the intransigence and jealousies of Islamist zealots and the scholar’s followers.
The Forty Rules of Love contains not only a book-within-a-book but an introduction to Sufism as well. However, it is the vibrant, talented performance of Laural Merlington that allows the story’s message of love to resonate across centuries. Carole Chouinard
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Story4 out of 5 stars 208
Set across Istanbul and Oxford, from the 1980s to the present day, Three Daughters of Eve is a sweeping tale of faith and friendship, tradition and modernity, love and an unexpected betrayal. Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife and mother, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground - an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Review 3 daughters of Eve
- By CA on 04-28-18
By: Elif Shafak
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Honor
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno, Piter Marik
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 115
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 99
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 96
An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London. Internationally best-selling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
By: Elif Shafak
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Galilee
- By: Clive Barker
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 23 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 274
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 244
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Story4 out of 5 stars 247
The Barbarossa family’s roots are far more ancient and ethereal, but they are bound to the Gearys by a shared history of murder, insanity, and adultery. When Rachel Geary and Galilee, the seductive prince of the Barbarossa clan, fall in love, they unleash powerful enmities that could destroy both dynasties. Shorter and more conventional than some of Barker’s other work, this novel is especially rich with complex, passionate, three-dimensional characters, lush settings, and elegant language.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Audiophile's Dream
- By Joseph on 09-01-11
By: Clive Barker
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Surprised by Oxford
- A Memoir
- By: Carolyn Weber
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 187
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 174
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Story5 out of 5 stars 174
Surprised by Oxford is the memoir of a skeptical agnostic who comes to a dynamic personal faith in God during graduate studies in literature at Oxford University.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Beautifully Written book
- By Adam Shields on 10-11-22
By: Carolyn Weber
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The Space Between Us
- By: Thrity Umrigar
- Narrated by: Purva Bedi
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,124
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 978
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 977
Best-selling author Thrity Umrigar won the Nieman Fellowship and earned a finalist spot for the PEN/Beyond Margins award with The Space Between Us. Set in modern-day India, this evocative novel follows upper-middle-class Parsi housewife Sera Dubash and 65-year-old illiterate household worker Bhima as they make their way through life. Though separated by their stations in life, the two women share bonds of womanhood that prove far stronger than the divisions of class or culture.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Story that stays with you
- By gardener97 on 04-25-15
By: Thrity Umrigar
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The Satanic Verses
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 21 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,915
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,661
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,651
Inextricably linked with the fatwa called against its author in the wake of the novel’s publication, The Satanic Verses is, beyond that, a rich showcase for Salman Rushdie’s comic sensibilities, cultural observations, and unparalleled mastery of language. The book begins with two Indians plummeting from the sky after the explosion of their airliner, and proceeds through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Use an audiobook to really enjoy Satanic Verses
- By David Edelberg on 11-24-12
By: Salman Rushdie
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Narcissus and Goldmund
- By: Hermann Hesse
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,070
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 907
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 908
Narcissus and Goldmund is the story of a passionate yet uneasy friendship between two men of opposite character. Narcissus, an ascetic instructor at a cloister school, has devoted himself solely to scholarly and spiritual pursuits. One of his students is the sensual, restless Goldmund, who is immediately drawn to his teacher's fierce intellect and sense of discipline.
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5 out of 5 stars
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My favorite of Hesse's novels, wonderfully read.
- By David on 10-21-11
By: Hermann Hesse
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Archangel
- Samaria, Book 1
- By: Sharon Shinn
- Narrated by: Tamara Marston
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 475
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 338
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 341
A tale of the distant future by the author of The Shape-Changer's Wife brings listeners to a world in which the fate of all life rests on the voice of an angel.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An All-TIme Favorite
- By Carol on 02-27-11
By: Sharon Shinn
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Florence Grace
- By: Tracy Rees
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,067
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,889
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,881
Florrie Buckley is an orphan living on the wind-blasted moors of Cornwall. It's a hard existence, but Florrie is content; she runs wild in the mysterious landscape. She thinks her destiny is set in stone. But when Florrie is 14, she inherits a never-imagined secret. She is related to a wealthy and notorious London family: the Graces.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Utterly brilliant!!!
- By Maria on 07-04-16
By: Tracy Rees
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The Blue Between Sky and Water
- By: Susan Abulhawa
- Narrated by: Jennifer Woodward
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 71
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 71
It is 1947, and Beit Daras, a quiet village in Palestine surrounded by olive groves, is home to the Baraka family. Eldest daughter Nazmiyeh looks after her widowed mother, prone to wandering and strange outbursts, while her brother, Mamdouh, tends to the village bees. Their younger sister, Mariam, with her striking mismatched eyes, spends her days talking to imaginary friends and writing.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Horrible pronunciation
- By Debra Sabah Press on 11-08-18
By: Susan Abulhawa
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The Gods of Tango
- A Novel
- By: Carolina De Robertis
- Narrated by: Carolina De Robertis
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 116
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 105
February 1913: seventeen-year-old Leda, carrying only a small trunk and her father's cherished violin, leaves her Italian village for a new home, and a new husband, in Argentina. Arriving in Buenos Aires, she discovers that he has been killed, but she remains: living in a tenement, without friends or family, on the brink of destitution. Still, she is seduced by the music that underscores life in the city: tango, born from lower-class immigrant voices, now the illicit, scandalous dance of brothels and cabarets.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A rousing tale
- By Jean on 07-24-15
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How Long 'Til Black Future Month?
- Stories
- By: N. K. Jemisin
- Narrated by: Shayna Small, Gail Nelson-Holgate, Robin Ray Eller, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 727
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 649
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 649
N. K. Jemisin is one of the most powerful and acclaimed speculative fiction authors of our time. In the first collection of her evocative short fiction, Jemisin equally challenges and delights listeners with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great! One quibble with the audiobook editing
- By L on 03-05-19
By: N. K. Jemisin
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Push Not the River
- By: James Conroyd Martin
- Narrated by: Dawn Harvey
- Length: 19 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 199
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 170
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Story4 out of 5 stars 173
Push Not the River is the rich story of Poland in the late 1700's - a time of heartache and turmoil as the country's once peaceful people are torn apart by neighboring countries and divided loyalties. It is then, at the young and vulnerable age of seventeen, that Lady Anna Maria Berezowska loses both of her parents and must leave the only home she has ever known.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Save your time; buy something else.
- By AMS on 10-22-15
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Muhammad: A Story of the Last Prophet
- By: Deepak Chopra MD
- Narrated by: Deepak Chopra
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 226
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 191
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Story4 out of 5 stars 191
Born into the factious world of war-torn Arabia, Muhammad's life is a gripping and inspiring story of one man's tireless fight for unity and peace. In a world where greed and injustice ruled, Muhammad created change by affecting hearts and minds. Just as the story of Jesus embodies the message of Christianity, Muhammad's life reveals the core of Islam. Deepak Chopra shares the life of Muhammad as never before, putting his teachings in a new light.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Poorly written and poorly narrated
- By Shahrad Milanfar on 10-21-10
By: Deepak Chopra MD
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The Voice
- An Ephemera Novella
- By: Anne Bishop
- Narrated by: Cassandra Morris
- Length: 1 hr and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 75
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 79
In a small village outside the city of Vision, the people know no sorrow or grief. But this seemingly idyllic community is hiding a terrible secret. As a young child, Nalah did not know why she was told to bring a cake to the mute girl known as the Voice whenever she was upset, only that doing so made her feel better. Now grown, Nalah understands the dark truth, and yearns to escape from the oppressive village that has been her life-long home.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Doesn't hold up
- By Linda on 05-22-13
By: Anne Bishop
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The Moor's Last Sigh
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 20 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 69
Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie combines a ferociously witty family saga with a surreally imagined and sometimes blasphemous chronicle of modern India and flavors the mixture with peppery soliloquies on art, ethnicity, religious fanaticism, and the terrifying power of love. Moraes "Moor" Zogoiby, the last surviving scion of a dynasty of Cochinese spice merchants and crime lords, is also a compulsive storyteller and an exile.
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3 out of 5 stars
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The performance is enchanting.
- By Kelly on 05-04-18
By: Salman Rushdie
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Bad Girls of the Bible
- And What We Can Learn from Them
- By: Liz Curtis Higgs
- Narrated by: Liz Curtis Higgs
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 205
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 173
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 174
Ten of the Bible's best-known femmes fatales parade across the pages of Bad Girls of the Bible with situations that sound oh-so-familiar. Eve had food issues. Potiphar’s wife and Delilah had man trouble. Lot’s wife and Michal couldn’t let go of the past, Sapphira couldn’t let go of money, and Jezebel couldn’t let go of anything. Yet the woman at the well had her thirst quenched at last, while Rahab and the sinful woman left their sordid histories behind.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Not for the pure and sensitive.
- By Mary & Scott on 01-03-19
By: Liz Curtis Higgs
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A Shadow in Summer
- Long Price Quartet, Book 1
- By: Daniel Abraham
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 307
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 271
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Story4 out of 5 stars 268
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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4 out of 5 stars
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REALLY Hard to Rate!
- By Trip Williams on 04-27-15
By: Daniel Abraham
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