The Soldati Prince

Publisher's Summary

One moment, Riley Murrough is living a normal life working in a coffee shop, and the next, he’s running for his life from demons, learns he bears the mark of a shape-shifter king from a magical realm, and - worst of all - he’s destined to become the mated prince to the arrogant tiger shifter he would rather strangle.

Khalon, the shifter king, is equally distraught at the idea of being bound to a human prince, and along with his Soldati warriors, he sets out to return Riley to his own world where he belongs. On their journey, they might discover why the priestess brought them together - if they can escape the demons and make it to her alive.

©2016 Charlie Cochet (P)2018 Dreamspinner Press

Interesting Premise

The story has an interesting premise: Tiger shifters battle demons through different dimensions, and during one such battle the Soldati King finds his fated mate, who is human.

Much of the world building is through exposition and the action is off page quite a bit, which isn't unusual given this is such a short novella, but in all I thought there was a good amount of world building throughout. The biggest surprise, for me, was how scant the romance aspect of this was especially for a fated mates story.

Manuel Pombo is a new to me narrator. He has a stronger Mexican accent, which is pleasant to listen to, and gave the male character voices, especially the tiger shifters, a strong, masculine sound. I'll admit I was a bit surprised at how he voiced Riley Murrough, mostly because I pictured Riley to have a more New York Irish kind of accent when I read the story.

Pombo does perform different character voices, but they were not always completely distinguishable from one another. I really liked his voice and tone for Khalon, but I did notice that Pombo sometimes lost an accent he was attributing to a character and would then pick it up again later.

He has good breath spacing, but his pacing and tone were off quite a lot in the beginning, and his pronunciation of some words was odd to me and had me stopping to rewind to figure out a particular word (i.e.: sleight sounding like slate).

All of that being said, this really wasn't an unpleasant listen, I mostly enjoyed the narration, especially as Pombo progressed, and the story was interesting with a strong HFN ending setting up a potential series.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Amazing new narrator!!!

I’d read the first edition in Charmed & Dangerous and liked it quite a lot! There’s not a TON of differences, but it is a bit longer. In any case it’s a really sweet story with a great deal of world building that I hope Charlie makes into a long series!

We have a clueless human who doesn’t know his destiny meeting a very conceited Tiger shifter, a prince, who ends up being his true mate. They don’t HAVE to mate, but if they don’t mate it’s hard work to avoid consequences. Meanwhile, unmated, their lives are in danger so they need to either commit to the mating or quickly get their fates reversed.

It seems like this would be a fast and furious sprint to the finish, but Charlie manages to create this “bubble” where our MCs can explore one another and actually build a relationship. It was a very clever plot device that gave this story a bit more staying power in my mind.

I loved the secondary characters as well, and hope to see them in the future.

What I loved about this was the great reversal where Khalon finally sees the good in Riley – I love those moments! So very sweet! There’s some nice smexy times and exciting adventures, too.

All in all a great short story and hopefully a start to a fun series!

Audio

The Soldati Prince is narrated by Manuel Pombo – a new to me narrator and he is AMAZING!

I literally cannot recommend this enough. Go out and listen to the sample for yourself – he’s got this great accent that he can switch from American to… British? I’m lousy at that identification process – but it rocks!

He’s also great with pacing and emotion and his voice is like BUTTER!

Highly recommended! I’m going to be re-listening to this one a LOT!

I really hope we see more of this guy he is awesome the perfect narrator for the story absolutely elevated this to a six out of five.


6 of 5 stars

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

sweet, fantasy romance and solid series starter

"The Soldati Prince" is a sweet, fantasy romance and solid series starter. As a novella introducing a magical realm, the book needs to establish the romance between Riley and Khalon, and do a lot of worldbuilding and character groundwork as well. For the most part, Charlie Cochet achieves this, helped along by a magical mate bond and a two-week off-page bonding period. The Soldati realm and its inhabitants are well-written, as well as the secondary characters that make up Khalon’s closest friends and advisors.

Additionally, Cochet has the wonderful ability to infuse the narrative and characters with charming quirks and details, making the story entertaining and fun and sometimes helping cover deficiencies. For example, as well-developed as Riley is, Khalon is a bit more flat. He’s arrogant, disdainful of humans but a well-loved ruler. While there’s a bit of depth added to his character in that his earlier shortness and abrasiveness with Riley stems from centuries of yearning for his mate and his inability to reconcile the powerful warrior mate, beyond that there is no real sense of who he is or a connection to his character. I had a better sense of/connection with Khalon’s friends than the MC. On the other hand, Riley is an interesting mix of charm, sweetness, sass and insecurity; unable to find his place in the world and believing himself to be inadequate and more or less invisible. The story, particularly the ending, is pure fairy-tale romance and magic, so depending on your tastes, the ending may feel full of fairy tale magic perfection or fairy-tale magic ridiculousness.

The narration is decent, and the narrator, Manuel Pombo, has a beautiful voice. It fits very well with the story, and I can see him becoming a fan favorite—one day. As great as his voice is, his technique needs a bit more work. One of the hardest things about being a narrator is pacing and delivery, and there are many instances when Pombo doesn’t take appropriate pauses and runs sentences/dialogue/character thoughts together. He also has trouble making and keeping the voices distinct and distinguishable from one another, particularly in dialogue. However, for the most part, Pombo’s delivery of emotions is well done, the narration does not detract from the story, and his unique, pleasant voice matches this light, fantastical, fairy-tale romance well.


Reviewed for The Novel Approach Reviews

Great Story, Great Narration, Wish it was Longer

The narration, though not flawless, was engaging and very very well done. It secured the rating for this book.

I loved everything about this story and loved how light hearted it came across even through all the icky parts. I felt the world building was adequate for a first book in a series and didn’t really think I needed more to make the reading experience more fulfilling on that front. Riley was a sweetheart and while Khalon started out as an ass, I quickly warmed up to him.

My only issues faced were the length of the book and how it ended. It really could’ve benefited from a long, proper epilogue in my humble opinion and a more thorough resolution to Riley’s predicament than a literal “one and done” scenario.

Other than that, everything was great and it’s off to Toka’s book!

Sweet and exciting

I loved it, wished it was a bit longer but I hope there are more books in the series. It gave me that Arthur meets anime vibe. I really liked that.

great beginning to a new series

One night leaving his coffee shop Riley finds his life changed in ways he never dreamed. Chased by demons and rescued by tiger shifters he finds himself mated to Khalon the king. But Khalon is not happy with the priestess choice and decides its best to return Riley to her and have the mark removed so he can get the right mate.

Riley is a quirky, funny man. I fell in love instantly with his humor and how he stood up to Khalon when everyone else was cowering to him.Khalon is a strong protector but pretty full of himself until Riley shows up.

I loved this story. It is a great set-up to a new series.There are some great characters, the plot was intriguing and the world amazing. But what do you expect from Charlie Cochet but another awesome book!

This was my first book narrated by Manuel Ponto. I think he was a perfect choice. I could see his voice with the man on the cover of the book. He had a great accent for Khalon and was able to drop it enough to give Riley a unique voice as well.
I am looking forward to more of this series.

Short but sweet....wonderful narrator

I do like Charlie Cochet's work in particular the Thirds series. However, I don't usually listen to books shorter than 6 hours. Feeling flush with Christmas credits, I decided to buy and listen to this book.

I'm so pleased that I did!
The narrator has a great voice and the performance was superb. Sometimes narrators rush but in this case the pace was just right. The characterisation was good and the different 'voices' easy to follow. Please, someone else employ him!

The story was good: I put it at 4 stars only because I felt that it was a HFN and the author could have continued the story.
If you enjoy paranormal M/M then this is right for you.