Witches Steeped in Gold

By: Ciannon Smart

Narrated by: Nicola Lambo, Tamika Katon-Donegal

This Jamaican-inspired fantasy debut about two enemy witches who must enter into a deadly alliance to take down a common enemy has the twisted cat-and-mouse of Killing Eve with the richly imagined fantasy world of Furyborn and Ember in the Ashes.

Divided by their order. United by their vengeance.

Iraya has spent her life in a cell, but every day brings her closer to freedom—and vengeance.

Jazmyne is the Queen’s daughter, but unlike her sister before her, she has no intention of dying to strengthen her mother’s power.

Sworn enemies, these two witches enter a precarious alliance to take down a mutual threat. But power is intoxicating, revenge is a bloody pursuit, and nothing is certain—except the lengths they will go to win this game.

""A thundering waterfall of magic, vengeance and intrigue."" —Samantha Shannon, New York Times & Sunday Times bestselling author of The Priory of the Orange Tree and The Bone Season.

Loved the story!

I loved the story, and the narration was pretty good, but one thing about it bothered me. The narrator assigned to the character “Ira” pronounced her full name (Iraya) 2 different ways. She sometimes said “ih-ray-uh,” and sometimes “ih-rye-uh.” She switched back and forth throughout the book, so it’s not like she learned part way through that she was pronouncing it wrong. And I tried to pay attention to which characters pronounced it which way, but it didn’t seem there was any correlation there either. Even Ira herself pronounced it differently. I couldn’t figure it out, and it bothered me the whole time.

Because of their thick accents, it was sometimes hard to understand the patois words and slang phrases, but this didn’t bother me much. It did impact my understanding of certain dialogue exchanges, but nothing major. It didn’t take away from my understanding of the story itself, and I appreciated the accents because it made the story feel more authentic. It’s just a warning to future listeners! Maybe have the physical copy of the book in front of you if you like to know all the small details and have a good understanding of little things like that.

Overall, I loved the book and the narration was great!

I really enjoyed this book.

I enjoyed the theme, the read and the story. I will look for more from this author.

Awesome

Awesome all the way around! Had to take notes to keep up with the details!

Island

Purchased because I desire more Caribbean literature and I generally like this genre. I did not find the story engaging. I'm Jamaican and this was just okay.

Kind of disappointed

I wanted the weak sniveling passive-aggressive power-hungry startled-mouse princess Jasmine to die. But the author put her in the next book. Obviously the author has no sense of justice, so I won’t be reading on.