Turning Darkness into Light

By: Marie Brennan

Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik, Raphael Corkhill

Marie Brennan's Turning Darkness into Light is a delightful fantasy of manners, the heir to the award-winning Natural History of Dragons series, a perfect stepping stone into an alternate Victorian-esque fantasy landscape.

As the renowned granddaughter of Isabella Camherst (Lady Trent, of the riveting and daring Draconic adventure memoirs), Audrey Camherst has always known she, too, would want to make her scholarly mark upon a chosen field of study.

When Lord Gleinheigh recruits Audrey to decipher a series of ancient tablets holding the secrets of the ancient Draconean civilization, she has no idea that her research will plunge her into an intricate conspiracy, one meant to incite rebellion and invoke war. Alongside dearest childhood friend and fellow archeologist Kudshayn, must find proof of the conspiracy before it’s too late.

©2019 Bryn Neuenschwander (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

Wonderful!

Marie Brennan is quickly moving into the ranks of my favorite authors. I enjoyed this addition to the tales of Lady Trent and her progeny and look forward to more!

Not included in the original series but a good sequel

This picks up after the 5 book series A Natural History of Dragons with Lady Trent’s granddaughter. She follows her grandpa (Suhil) path of being a linguist and is asked to translate some tablets. Well, as with any relative of Lady Trent, she has drama around the project. It’s not like the original series but a great addition to it.

Great performance

Both of the actors were extraordinary, especially in the places where new accents were needed.

Very well done addition to this series!

Series Info/Source: This is the 6th book in A Natural History of Dragons series (aka The Memoirs of Lady Trent). I got this as an audiobook through Audible.

Audiobook Quality (5/5): The audiobook was a joy to listen to and very well done. I would strongly recommend listening to this on audiobook if you enjoy audiobooks.

Story (4/5): This was a well done story set in the same world as the Memoirs of Lady Trent. The story follows Audrey (Lady Trent's granddaughter) as she works with one of the dragonkin (Kudshayn) to decipher an ancient draconic text that reveals many life changing facts about the past relationship between dragons and humans. Of course, things aren't completely straight-forward and it seems there is a conspiracy afoot as well. The story alternates between Audrey and Kudshayn and their lives and the reading of the ancient text itself. This was very well done and I enjoyed it. Some of the parts where the ancient draconic text is being read is a bit long.

Characters (4/5): I absolutely loved both Audrey and Kudshayn, they were fun characters to get to know and I loved learning their background. Both are intelligent and hardworking. The “evil” characters were just as well done, everyone was well filled out and had a lot of depth.

Setting (5/5): The setting in this series is amazing. It’s a very Victorian London type of world but where dragons exist and have recently become a part of daily life. The world-building is very well done and incredibly well filled out. We don’t get to adventure around like we did in the Lady Trent books but I still really enjoy the world. Brennan is an amazing world-builder.

Writing Style (4/5): The writing was well done and easy to follow. The sections of the ancient text are written in a much more formal style and I didn’t enjoy these parts as much because they were so dry...however, the different styles the book was written in were masterfully done. It was very well written.

My Summary (4.5/5): Overall I really liked this and would recommend if you are a fan of the Lady Trent series. I am not sure this would work well as a stand alone book because there's a lot of background that's needed from the Lady Trent series to fully appreciate the story. There is some amazing world-building in here and I really enjoyed the characters. I did miss all the adventure from the first books but was still very happy to have read this and would recommend it.

More Please!

I have devoured the Lady Trent memoirs and now Turning Darkness Into Light, and it has been such a delight. Marie Brennan has quickly shot to the top of the list of my favorite authors.