Winterdream

A Retelling of The Nutcracker

De: Chantal Gadoury

Narrado por: Anne Marie Lewis

This Christmas Eve, no creature was stirring, except, maybe, a mouse. At long last, can true love break the Nutcracker’s curse?

For Clara Stahlbaum, this Christmas means the end of her youth. A daughter of the aristocracy, Clara is expected to give up her dreams of adventures and the extraordinary for more normal days as the wife of a cruel viscount.

But when magical Uncle Drosselmeyer returns with his wondrous, dancing contraptions and one special gift for Clara, she is beckoned to the land of Winter Dream, where she is thrust into the greatest adventure of her wildest dreams.

But will she be able to break the Nutcracker's curse? Uncle Drosselmeyer’s apprentice Anton is handsome as he is mysterious. But what is it about him Clara finds so alluring?

Winter Dream is a phenomenal retelling of The Nutcracker from the eyes of Clara Stahlbaum with all the magic of the Holiday season. If you loved S. Jae-Jones’ Wintersong, you’ll fall in love with this stunning tale of love, war, redemption, and Christmas magic. Listen to it now!

©2017 Machova Productions Inc (P)2019 Machova Productions Inc

Wonderful!

It's Christmas Eve. Clara is enjoying the Christmas Ball that her parents always put together. This one is different because her best friend has gotten engaged. She knows that soon becoming engaged will be expected of her as well. The night is interrupted by a dramatic entrance by her great uncle. He gives her a gift that changes everything. It leads her to a whole new world where everybody is counting on her to break a spell. I have to be honest, I have never actually read The Nutcracker. If it was read to me, I was too young to remember it fully. I did see it every year in theatre as a child. It was and will always remain one of my favorite plays of all time. I loved the story. I loved the rendition. I was ecstatic to find out that this was a retelling! I was curious to see where they would take the story. I could cry with happiness! The beginning starts out almost entirely like the original story. I stress the almost. Clara was a beautiful soul. She was born into aristocracy, but she remained humble and kind. It was beautiful. She was actually a refreshing change to a character I've endured recently, but that's for another place and time. I loved all the characters in the book. Even the ones that were not that great. I mean they are the biggest reason we read these stories. We enjoy the conflict! They bring the conflict! Also, I will never look at a Nutcracker the same way. We have a collection here. This book was narrated by Anne Marie Lewis. She did a very impressive job for the most part. There were times she made some of the people sound a bit robotic and stiff. I think for some of them that was done on purpose. I can't be sure. I especially think she designed the Prince's voice to sound like that as he was a Nutcracker. Either way, I really enjoyed her narration! I feel like I should have had some anxieties going into this story. Especially since it's retelling one of my favorite plays of all time. I didn't. I was more thrilled than anything. I mean I'm constantly seeing Disney Princess retellings. I would love to see retellings from other stories as well! This was told so beautifully. It's hard not to just want to listen to the very end!

Wonderful retelling.

I really enjoyed this story told from Clara's point of view. Narration was well done. Good expression and voices pretty good.

As Good a Performance as the Story Allowed

I enjoyed the performer's inflections and her occasional use of a Russian accent to articulate the foriegn words. However, the story felt a little flat to me. The tone of the Nutcracker story envokes a feeling of atmospheric wonder and spontaneity from me. When the author steered the story into a serious romantic drama with court intrigue, it just didn't jive with me. I did appreciate how light-hearted the story was in comparison to the darker YA stories out there though. It made me smile on occasion.

another way to look at the nutcracker story

Nutcracker in a different way. I was able to get lost in a world that I knew, but I didn't know. Nutcracker for me has been a tradition for me and the daughters of my heart. We would dress up and go experience a night of fantasy, magic, and dreams of hope, love, adventure.

I very much enjoyed WinterDream. It was fantastic seeing a classic through the eyes of this single character. The world was fanciful. The strength of the lead. The depths of the world created/re-created.

It was just something fanciful,magical, captivating about Anne Marie Lewis' voice. She brought you in and kept you to the end of the audio. The audio was clean, clear, and quality.

*****
I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Chantal Gadoury. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

This is a Winterdream

This is my first audiobook for review so please be gentle with your thoughts at the end.

Ironically, I legit just watched Nutcracker and the Four Realms so the timing for this could not have been funnier.

Audiobooks, to me, are a bit of an inconvenience. Mainly because it requires me to have a generally quiet atmosphere and no distractions so that I can concentrate on what’s going through my ears. Winterdream was the same issue. Even still it was surprisingly enjoyable.

The narrator, Anne Marie Lewis, had a very soothing voice, which was not great for me because my brain kept telling me to sleep, but it was very pleasant otherwise. The language was extremely descriptive, which was weird to hear out loud.

The characters were very well developed. The plot likewise. Honestly, it was one of the best retellings for The Nutcracker ever. I loved it. And I’m really picky about my retellings. This one hit all the marks though.

It had imaginative tangents while still remaining truthful to the original story but not just reiterating the story all over again. Honestly, Winterdream was such a great read. Y’all gotta check it out!