The Staff and the Blade

Irin Chronicles, Book Four

By: Elizabeth Hunter

Narrated by: Jay Britton

Length: 15 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's Summary

Warriors. Lovers. Enemies. Legends.

Their union became pivotal in Irin history, but to understand Damien and Sari's ending, you must go back to their beginning. Four hundred years ago, a young singer and a hardened warrior met and loved each other, but their life was torn apart by violence.

But no matter how much pain and anger stain their lives, bonds in the Irin race cannot be abandoned. Damien and Sari will never truly leave each other, because those who are destined cannot be ignored.

The Staff and the Blade is the fourth book in the Irin Chronicles.

©2016 Elizabeth Hunter (P)2018 Elizabeth Hunter

Love and time!

The Staff and The Blade is Damien and Sari’s story. The book takes you back to the beginning of their relationship, the reason for their separation and hurt feelings, through Ava’s meeting the fabled Irina, and Damien’s family. The story is an extraordinary tale of guilt, love, happiness, battles, pain, revenge, and joy. The characters are believable. You’ll laugh and cry. Jay Britton did a good job. I turned the speed of the audiobook to 1.25x since the pauses between each sentence wasn’t to my liking (personal preference not to be used to dissuade other buyers) I wish however that since Zachary Webber started the series he could have narrated this book too. I’m a listener who devours series and when narrators change halfway through with different voices for the same characters in previous books it’s very annoying and dissatisfying.

Stilted narration, bad editing....

I'm not sure how much to blame on the narration or the editor. There were long pauses between phrases and in the middle of conversations or actions. There were at least 3 times that phrases repeated themselves. If I didn't like the 1st books in this series I wouldn't have plowed through to the end of this one.

Love the book but hate the audiobook

I enjoyed the reader from the first few books in the series but this guy lacks warmth and almost sounds robotic. I would not recommend this recording at all, just buy the book and read it for yourself.

Terrible narration

I really loved this series until this book. The voices were all different, he pronounced key character names differently from the entire series, the series was about the Irina which he now pronounces completely different. Confusing for the storyline and the narration was just boring. Totally ruined the book for me.

Beautiful love story of Damien and Sari..

Although, I was bummed the fourth story was not continued using narrator Zachary Webber, Jay did a really good job. I was glad to get the history on the lives of Damien and Sari. Heartbreaking at times, but hopeful for love separated... In the first three books, the reader was aware that there was a long, sad history between the two. Glad to understand it now. These chronicles can shed light on many different stories, emphasis on the fallen angel lives, greggory defectors etc. I'm excited to see what Elizabeth Hunter has up her sleeves, in future books of the Irin chronicles! I'll be waiting 😀

Challenging to teach the end

I was super surprised this is the same writer as the scribe serious. I don’t think it was a Boeing as I thought but the narrator made it so much worse. It was Ike a PowerPoint meeting. I skipped multiple chapters many times. The strange or pronunciation of the allele Voland and Jarron was like scratching a chalk board. So so so disappointing they didn’t not keep Zach Webber for the narration. Would have been much more bearable to get to the end. I enjoyed the overlap of the scribe story, but damn the narrator killed AVA as well. I would not waste a credit on this book . Good to hear about the rendering but that’s all that it was worth.

A powerful love story BUT read the prior 3 books first

It boggles my mind that this book is being marketed as a standalone. There is no way to truly appreciate this book without the journey of Ava/Malachi as well as Damien and Sari's interactions in the prior 3 books. This book makes the way they relate to each other make more sense and give their love story more meat.
I have always enjoyed Damien...even more so than Sari but their past was painful. There was great pain, loss and later forgiveness.

This story and series is very well done. It's creative, emotional and really engaging. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I remembered from the prior books. I want to catch up on the rest of the books now.

Loved this book just as much as the previous books!

I Really enjoyed this narrator! I wasn’t sure if I’d like this story since we already knew the outcome of Damien and Sari from the previous book but I absolutely loved it! I am addicted to this series and hope the other books are made very soon. I’m not sure if I can wait for the audios or if I will just read them instead.

FANTASTIC

Best I’ve listened to in a long time by far was the best so far out of the series.! Couldn’t get myself to stop listening. This is a must have in anyone’s library!

Absolutely Amazing

Elizabeth Hunter continues to do an amazing job! I loved the many aspects of the story. Jay Britton was more than amazing! I am super picky about narrators, but he was 100% perfect.

Awful Narration

It was difficult to get into the story because of the awful narration. I bought all of the books in the series without checking the narrator as I hoped/assumed that the narrator would be the same throughout. Unfortunately this isn’t the case, this narrator is unbearably slow, on 1x he sounds computerised and fake and even on 1.5x to 1.8x the voice is stilted. There is no inflection or emotion in the language.

The poor pronunciation is terrible across the book and the inconsistency makes it even worse. In Sari’s name he goes from a sharp A sound as in cat to a softer ahh sound giving no consistent vision.

I’ve used so much space for the downsides, the tale is nice and gives some history to Damien and Sari. It could have been wonderful.

I don't think I will make it trough

every of this book is so slow for me...I don't know if is the reader or the story...but too slow!
I wanted to know how it was going to end but nothing I started to fall asleep while driving the other day. so stop...enough for me .sorry.

Another great book from Elizabeth Hunter

I absolutely love these books! It days stand alone but I think you do need to have read/listened to the first 3 in order to grasp the full potential of the story.
The only thing I was disappointed in was the narrator. The narrator in the first 3 was fantastic and got the voices and accents for the characters spot on, this one not so much much.

Brilliant

This is my favourite so far of a fantastic series . Damien and sari are fascinating together and I love the tension and passion between them .Pls give them a happy ending x

Same story and annoying voice

Same story from different perspective and annoying reader, at least Damien's voice was. Not totally bad story but not worth a lots of money.

Disappointing

The story is brilliant - giving the background of Damien and Sari, but the change of narrator was a big distraction. I found his narration rather stilted for most of the book and, to me, his voice for Damien seemed to change occasionally. When Rhys appeared he had a Scottish, I think, accent - a complete change from the earlier books where he was English. Ava was girlish when she appeared also. I realise that we all 'see' characters in our own way and this is influenced by narrator, so a change of narrator this far into the series is disappointing. This is the second time I've listened to the series and I'm still so disappointed that I'm submitting this review (again) - I'm sure I submitted a review after my first 'listen', but I can't find it on amazon.

Spoiled by the change in narrator

For those who enjoyed the Irin Chronicles, this is an interesting book. It tells Damien's and Sari's story up to and after the events in the first three Irin books. Unfortunately Zachary Webber does not continue the narrative. I was surprised, when I looked him up, to find Jay Britton to be an acclaimed voice actor. His delivery is somewhat robotic, although very clear. He's also guilty of some unforgivable mispronunciations; and a shocking lack of research - a few pages of The Scribe would have told him that Ava is an independent American woman, not an insecure English child. BUT he does the most amazing voice for Damien. Really amazing.

Listen to the sample if you're considering buying this. I did, and will listen again sometime. But if the reader is really wrong for you, leave it and read the book.