The Rose of Sarifal

A Forgotten Realms Novel

By: Paulina Claiborne

Narrated by: Suzy Harbulak

Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

Cloaked in mist and layered in magic, the denizens of Moonshae Isles move in secret circles as capricious rulers vie for power.

High Lady Ordalf wanted her niece, the princess known as the Rose of Sarifal, dead. Instead, the young regent was secreted away by the high lady’s opponents. For years the eladrin queen of Gwynneth Isle has searched for evidence of her niece’s death, and word has finally come in the form of a castaway’s tale. The princess lives on the island of Moray - a mad beauty who leads a nation of lycanthropes.

As long as her niece is alive, Lady Ordalf cannot rest secure in her claim to the throne. Enlisting a band of adventurers to seek out the princess is thefirst step toward stemming the Rose of Sarifal and her tide of wolves. Will those heroes see the same threat the queen sees in the beautiful young maiden?

©2012 Wizards of the Coast, Inc. (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Pretty good

narrator can sound robotic at times and mispronounced a few things but once you get over it, it gets better. story is a little confusing,but I tend to fall asleep so I usually re listen to things multiple times anyways

Unusually good content but needed more refinement

Any additional comments?

Not many of these new Audible offerings in the D&D subgenera have reviews yet. But you can go to the Amazon parent company and find reviews of the book itself. The story is a little hard to follow because of the number of characters and groups, as well as the overarching story. It needed to come with a cast of characters and be better at letting the audience know what is going on overall. This was my take:

Protagonist crew
Lucas - Captain of the Spinx and a ranger
Gasparshen -a Genasea (fish humanoid, blue skin like tropical fish)
Succa - Gnome
The Savage -Golden Elf, black skin golden haired, wears black
Marakay -human priestest, yellow hair
Kip -boy (referred to as a cat shifter I think), came with Marakay

Lady Oraloff - Big Kingdom 1, Queen of the Fey (aka LeShay)
Monbaldium - nephew of Oraloff
Prince ArathAldron Kendrick -Queen's lord
Princess Marabaldia - giantess, prisoner with Succa
Poke - lycanthrope, pig, prisoner with Succa

Moray Island - where Queen Oraloff ended up after assasination attempt when a child. Amaranth -Island queen (sister to Oraloff). Some lycanthropes inhabitants made her their queen, though they're only a villiage and not the only one on the island.
Argon Bale - swordsman and leader of lycanthropes following old ways/god (opposing Amaranth)
Aluthra -female druid priest warewolf of Bales's group

King Dared, Big Kingdom 2
Captain Rurick - king envoy who hired Lucas/crew to take to Moray island to transport/defend KendrickVendarian - magician of some kind

So big Kingdom 2 and some allies would like Kingdom 1 to stop bothering them. They want to get Amaranth from Moray Island to be its new ruler. Oraloff, naturally enough, would rather stay in power. So it is the story of the pawns, the Spinx’s crew and Amaranth. Unusually good character development for this subgenera, which is developed with some backstory on the characters as you go and interesting. The past/present back and forth did not throw me.

There is more writing talent (I'd say a 4 or 4.5 on that) in many of the scenes than you expect in this subgenera and the naration was subtly good. How smooth the plot seemed to flow and make sense to the audience was the drawback. That and the ending not being very strong. The Spinx’s crew has the right dynamic and an earlier, less dramatic and smother story would probably be really good.