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

Favorite of the series

This is the story of Sari and Damien. It takes place over centuries, as they come together and fall apart. I won’t not recommend it without reading the first three books, as I think it would be confusing.

Both characters are strongly written, fierce, but their deep care for each other is fun to watch.

There are a few jarring pronunciation issues, particularly for names. I cringed a few times, but it smoothed out later in the book. Mr. Britton’s reading was solid, and I liked the way he gave each character a different voice. Try a sample, I think readers of the other books will love this one.

Need old narrator back

I could not get through the book. I was used to the male voices in the previous books, which were absolutely great. Now they sound completely different, even with how they pronounce some of the words. This narrator isn't necessarily bad, but the huge change of voices for the characters just killed it for me.

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.

narrator sounds like a documentary

The British narrator reminded me of a documentary, with weird pauses. or perhaps he's a Shakespearean actor and used to iambic pentameter.
This book changes to a different main couple, secondary in the first 3 books, which was fun!

not as good as the others

I was a little disappointed in this book I love the first three, Ava and Maleki's story. this book was like a whole lot of novellas put together. while it was nice to get the backstory for Sari and Damian there was a lot of repetitiveness in the middle (recap?) during the part when they got back together. I did not care for the narrator on this one, he made Damian sound like a constipated Oscar the grouch. I'm assuming that the change in narrator was due to the change in main character. I'm not sure if I will look forward to the next book I will definitely have to see who the narrator is and who the story is about.

not as good as the first 3

I enjoyed the book however did not like the narration at all. I enjoyed the first 3 books but this one was not as enjoyable especially either the narration sounding as if they were reading

Why did you change narrators???

I’ve read this series previously & when I found out it was on audiobooks I was excited. The narrator of the first three books was amazing! His tone, the inflections, the distinctions between characters, everything… fabulous. Fast forward to this book #4 WHY WAS THE NARRATOR CHANGED??? I haven’t even made it out of the first chapter and I’m writing this review. The tone is very ROBOTIC and his accents are offensive to my ears. The accents don’t match the previous books and neither does the energy. If Jay Britton is narrating the remaining books then I’ll pass on the audio & just download to kindle.
I’m only finishing this because I paid for it.

Not an easy listening

I loved the three previous books. This one not so much. Apart for about ten chapters of a 38 chapter book was new the remaining chapters were repeats of previous books. That was not an issue for me. The main issue was four epilogues and four prologues announced throughout narration. Further did no one edit this recording. Four times during narration the editing clip repeated the same sentence. As we are paying full price for a novel this compilation of short stories was disappointing. Am moving on to fifth book.

Narrator change up

The change of narrator isn't great. He pronounces differently or mispronounces names from the earlier books and cities. His cadence and voices are annoying. He changes characters general attitudes and are very different from the previous books. If this had been the first narrator I would have never listened this far in the series. Really quite terrible.

Atrocious Narration!

The narration is stilted and emotionless. The character voices are over the top. I think this narrator must have previously been a terrible video game narrator.

The back story was great. But, better in written form.