The Magic Eaters

The Complete Fantasy Trilogy Plus Prequel (The Magic Eaters Trilogy)

By: Carol Beth Anderson

Narrated by: Carol Beth Anderson

Length: 48 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Get ready to devour The Magic Eaters: over 48 hours of dystopian YA fantasy featuring dragons, romance, and a magical world like no other.

Blogger Sara R. Cleveland said, "The Frost Eater is hands down the best YA book I have read in a long time. Maybe ever."

One-click to get the entire acclaimed series!

Book 1 Description:

A spoiled royal hungry for excitement. A young man who hates nobles. Can they foil a kidnapping before they fall prey to an enemy's deadly magic?

Seventeen-year-old Princess Nora Abrios is lonely and bored. Though she’s a frost eater who creates magical ice, she’d give anything for a chance to really cut loose. When a commoner’s flying antics capture her attention, she seizes the opportunity to partner up and escape her dreary palace duties.

Krey West’s girlfriend Zeisha disappeared weeks ago. He vowed to discover her fate. So when his unusual magic catches the eye of the privileged princess, he jumps at the chance to find his love by exploiting the monarchy he hates. But he’s surprised by his feisty new ally’s willingness to defy her family and dig deep into the nation’s darkest secrets…

As new evidence shocks Nora, she makes the fateful choice to flee the capital and join Krey in banishment. And when they uncover a sinister plot which runs darker than the disappearance of one girl, Krey resolves to do whatever it takes…even if he must face down a dragon.

Can Nora and Krey save Zeisha and expose a shadowy enemy, or will their prying spell their doom?

The Magic Eaters is an enthralling dystopian YA fantasy trilogy, plus a sci-fi/fantasy prequel. If you like funny and capricious heroines, smart and snarky heroes, romance subplots, and unique world-building, then you’ll adore Carol Beth Anderson’s fast-paced series.

©2020, 2021 Carol Beth Anderson (P)2021 Carol Beth Anderson

lacks qualities to identify with.

I tried to hang in there. I may try again later, because audible won't let me return this dumpster fire. I find the male lead of the story to be extremely distasteful. He should have had his teeth knocked out by any number of other men in the story by now. All of the female characters should, at the very least, be slapping the stupid out of him every other paragragh. I find myself actively hoping that the character will be horrifically injured, and die slowly. last I checked, you're not supposed to feel that way about a protagonist, or deuteragonist.

Disappointing

I couldn't even make it past chapter 4. I really wanted to like it but the story line feels very forced, and the reactions and motivations of the characters don't seem realistic. It's jarring enough that I find my mind wandering while listening. The premise seemed good but the execution is lacking. Ugh I wasted a credit on it.. when I'm bored enough I may try again; if I do I'll update the review accordingly. I will say, she reads it well enough; I just don't think she understands her character's reactions either so it didn't help with the story line.

Had potential but fell short

I really had high hopes for this. I’m not sure if it was the writing or the narration that I struggled with, but I had a hard time finishing the series. I thought the plot started out strong and then fell flat. The storyline was so unique and it was an interesting spin on magic. However the two main characters were insufferable.

Fantastic fantasy

I really enjoyed the books. I was sucked from the very first page. Just keep in mind you will want to keep going after you finish the first story. They end on cliffhangers. I really loved the stories though!

Intriguing and unusual

I thoroughly enjoyed the series as a whole. I was so completely enthralled with the story that I didn’t want to put it down. It was intriguing and the world building was unusual. I didn’t exactly understand the purpose of the journal log entries for the first two books. They were just confusing and random to me. However, for the third book they pertained to Nora’s parents which made sense and brought some insight to the backstory. I highly recommend reading the prequel first to get a better understanding of the evolution of the world and how it came to be.

The author does an okay narration with the exception of her tone inflection for the characters. It all sounded the same so you really couldn’t differentiate between characters unless names were spoken. Only then did you know who was talking to whom. So while I didn’t love it, I also didn’t hate it.

Great Story Line

These books were amazing! I had a hard time putting them down. The story is great! The characters were interesting.

Epic Fantasy, great magic system, and fascinating world building

4.5 stars overall for the full trilogy and prequel. This builds an intriguing and fascinating magic system, where the magic wielders consume “fuel” of some kind in order to be able to use and continue to power their magic. And the “fuel” is directly related to their power - to fly, they consume feathers, to use stone magic, rocks are consumed, vine magic users consume tree bark or other similar environmental items, and frost magic wielders consume ice. There is a hierarchical system in place that definitely drives who can use their powers - often tied to their access to their fuel. The overall plot follows Princess Nora, a frost eater, who discovers the dark underbelly of her kingdom and the magical world when she meets Krey, who is desperate to find out what happened to his girlfriend Zeisha, who disappeared after being recruited into a mysterious magic apprenticeship, supposedly by the crown.

The world in and of itself is fascinating as well. It’s a foreign planet, settled by humans millennia before, which has since befallen to an apocalyptic event that decimated the population almost entirely, wiped out all technology and scientific development, but brought forth magic and magical creatures. Just learning the different aspects of the world and it’s history is engrossing enough to keep the story moving, the world building is excellent.

The characters are the other big plus. Nora is opened up to a whole new perspective on the world, and her entire foundation is shaken to it’s core. The people she meets, connects with, and ultimately joins with are a great cast of characters - playing off each other like family, they become very close knit. The romantic aspects of the story are also built well - there’s a very realistic component to them, and they evolve in a way that in the end makes the most sense for the characters, but it’s not without heartache, sacrifice, and pain. There was even one point where I was so invested, that the shift made me angry enough to actually think I wasn’t going to like the direction the story was headed. But I was wrong, the relationships ended up as they really should have in the end, and overall became very satisfying and felt right.

It’s quite a ride, with the whole trilogy, and the prequel. The prequel really could be read first or last. I actually read it last (order of publication), and I think I actually appreciated it more, especially for the twist/tie-in at the end that really pulled it all together perfectly with the trilogy, but as with anything, that is my subjective opinion and experience. Either way, it was a great series.

Narrated by the author, the narration is quite good and does well to increase the overall enjoyment of the story. You know if the author is narrating it, that you’re also going to get everything pronounced the way it was intended, which is definitely a plus when dealing with fantasy. Definitely a good audiobook series.

This should be a TV Show!

I was completely blown away by this Trilogy and Prequel!

The Author did an amazing job creating this story. I can see this being made into a TV Show or movies, its that amazing! These books held my attention from start to finish and I was completely captivated by the magic of it all.

The author also narrated these books and I think she did a phenomenal job bringing this story to life.

This series is about humanity living on another world after an apocalyptic event. There is magic, dragons, secrets, and mystery.

I 100% recommend listening to this.

I loved this series!!!

Amazingly crafted magical world that pulls you in and doesn't let go!!
I just loved the Magic Eaters trilogy!
The story is well written, rich with detail and an amazing adventure with great characters! The audio narration is well done and does an amazing job bringing the story to life!
I highly recommend this series!!

good read, would recommend

I really enjoyed listening to these books. 4stars bc I struggled with the prequel at first. But it really developed as the story progressed. the concept is great and the array of characters are wonderful. I recommend reading the prequel first. It seemed to make the fantasy aspect so much easier to accept and sets up the story well once I got a few chapters in. enjoy!

Loved it!

I was searching for a good series of books to listen to that wasn't non-fiction for a long time.

Having ADHD, I never know what my level of focus will be, and I can't predict if I will be able to follow a story from begining to end.

This serie is fantastic! The narration done by the author is very well done. It's not boring, the different voices that she tries to do to differentiate characters is good as well and makes it more interesting.

The storyline is very good as well, lots of development and I like the mix of science fiction and fantasy, where the world is set with technologies and planets and magic!

The characters are interesting in their own way, and not too basic.

Overall even though the public is probably for young adults I still enjoyed it being 30yo.

I loved all 40+ hours

Normally a 40+ hour audio box set wears me out- even when I love the series already. This one, however, and for whatever reason, didn’t! I enjoyed it to the very end and couldn’t wait to hear what happened.

Narrator review- I really enjoyed having the author narrate. She did a great job.

Story review- I was a little weirded out by the title “Magic Eaters”. Like, what is that? But I decided to give it a go since reviews on Amazon were good. I’m so glad I did! It was a fantastic YA Fantasy story with a unique magic system.

I did get a little confused on the worlds and and then rules of magic- sometimes it seemed like the author took liberties and added things for the story. But I didn’t feel like looking back to see if things lined up. The story was enjoyable enough, it didn’t really matter.

This is a fantastic set of books!

The world building is great and the characters are so well thought out that it can easily be envisioned. The viewpoints are taken from varying characters in each story with a differing set of gifts and magic from entitled royals down to the "meager" peasant off the street. The fight for survival is very real as each set of people do their best to survive and try to thrive. A wonderful fantasy series to enthrall even the hardcore fantasy readers and listeners. Story telling at it's best!

Narrated by the author wonderfully-love it

This is book 1 in The Magic Eaters trilogy by Carol Beth Anderson who kindly gifted me with audio book in return for a non-biased review. It was great and I can’t wait to get my teeth into the next book.

Nora is a lonely and kind-hearted Princess living in a post-apocalyptic world called Anyari. Her ancestors left Earth to colonise this new world and it’s often described what life was like before ‘The Day’ This is when most of the population died along with all technology much like our own. What the survivors got in return was many of them now have magical abilities and Nora is a what is called a Frost Eater. Meaning when she eats shards of ice, she has the power to control and manipulate ice, frost or snow. Others have different magical gifts that manifest in a similar fashion to Frost Eating. They can control stones, fire, earth and some even fly. These are just some of the magical gifts but I won’t tell you more so you can experience this wonderfully created world as you read.

Krey is a Feather and Ice Eater who despises the monarchy, and he believes they are responsible for his girlfriend being missing. Nora is desperate for a friend and forgives his abrupt and obnoxious treatment of her as she just craves a friend her age. Krey needs to get over himself and put his trust in Nora and together they start to investigate other Magical Eater disappearances.

The world building is fantastic and the clever writing paints a very vivid picture in your head. Especially gives you a feeling of dread when you think what it would be like to live with no electricity or mobile phones! That’s a very scary concept for me as my phone is like an extra limb. Lol

This is a young adult high fantast with a little taste of romance and the ending will leave you itching to get to the next in the series!

I would give this a solid 4.5/5 only because I like a little more romance but trust me this is just my preference. This is packed with action and adventure and thrilling twists and turns! I would highly recommend the audio versions as its wonderfully narrated by the author herself! You really can feel her love for this world and the characters.