Yes I totally signed up for another audiobook series blog tour and yes this one is more of a high fantasy trilogy than mystery and wow this got super intense! Thank you so much to Audiobookworm Promotions for having me on the tour. Be sure to click on the banner for the full tour schedule, and stay tuned for my post on the second installment of the trilogy.
“All things are composed of patterns….” And within the pattern of the realm of Alorin, three strands must cross.
In Alorin…300 years after the genocidal Adept Wars, the realm is dying, and the blessed Adept race dies with it. One man holds the secret to reverting this decline: Bjorn van Gelderan, a dangerous and enigmatic man whose shocking betrayal three centuries past earned him a traitor’s brand. It is the Adept Vestal Raine D’Lacourte’s mission to learn what Bjorn knows in the hope of salvaging his race. But first he’ll have to find him….
In the kingdom of Dannym…the young Prince Ean val Lorian faces a tenuous future as the last living heir to the coveted Eagle Throne. When his blood brother is slain during a failed assassination, Ean embarks on a desperate hunt for the man responsible. Yet his advisors have their own agendas, and his quest for vengeance leads him ever deeper into a sinuous plot masterminded by a mysterious and powerful man, the one they call First Lord.
In the Nadori desert…tormented by the missing pieces of his life, a soldier named Trell heads off to uncover the truth of his shadowed past. But when disaster places him in the debt of Wildlings sworn to the First Lord, Trell begins to suspect a deadlier, darker secret motivating them.
Melissa McPhail is the author of the best-selling epic fantasy series A Pattern of Shadow & Light. She’s the mother of twin girls who think boys in books are just better, and the adoptive mother to four very large cats who basically rule the roost; and while she can never leave the house in one attempt, she’s pretty darn good at spinning a tale. She’s also a classically trained pianist, violinist and composer, a Vinyasa yoga instructor, and an avid tea drinker. Melissa’s fantasy series has won eight best fantasy awards and (even more importantly to her) a fiercely devoted following. She is known for being an engaged author on social media and welcomes your thoughts on her work, the speculative fiction genre or writing in general.
Nick Podehl is an award-winning audiobook narrator and voice actor who’s narrated hundreds of titles across many different genres. In addition to narrating the epic fantasy series A Pattern of Shadow and Light and prior to his new long-term deal with Podium, he narrated the epic fantasy series the Kingkiller Chronicles, as well as some iconic works of teen fiction – including Wonder, and Will Grayson, Will Grayson. He was named an Audible Customer Favorite in 2018 and has been honored with an Audie Award, along with multiple Earphones Awards from AudioFile Magazine. He lives and works in the Midwest with his lovely wife and two beautiful daughters.
Disclaimer: I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Podium Publishing. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.
Okay I’m definitely a newbie to adult epic fantasy novels. They can be pretty dense and full of a lot of information that you need to pay attention to. It’s not an easy read, at least not for me. So it helped a lot that I was listening to this novel rather than reading it. So thank you so much to Podium Publishing for making this into an audiobook for the likes of people like me. Epic fantasy / high fantasy adult novels are best digested when someone is telling me the story than if I read it to myself.
Which brings me to my first point. Thank goodness Podehl was a great narrator. Especially for this kind of novel, that got super long, had difficult scenes that I needed to get through, and just was very long. He made it entertaining for me and I felt like he matches epic fantasy novels. I’m curious to see what his favorite genre of book is to narrate, but I definitely give him kudos for this one. I think he did an amazing job in this novel, and I am so glad he helped me pronounce a lot of the names that I wasn’t sure of. It just made it a lot more interesting.
Now, on the book itself. McPhail definitely knows how to write an adventure. I’m glad that she made this into a trilogy rather than one super long novel. Even though each main character’s plot could make their own novel if we really wanted it to be, I liked that McPhail intertwined their plotlines in this trilogy. I think I like Trell of the Tides mostly because of that moniker. But I was pretty into Prince Ean as well. I don’t know who my favorite was, but I was definitely intrigued with all of their journeys. I’m curious to see what happens in the second novel, and I’ll find out soon.
Sometimes Leelynn Reads 
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