Pure treasure and sheer delight

What an amazing package?! Original story set on another world - a magical one at that and yet I felt as if I had always known the concepts, their way of life even their language. Utterly captivating, cleverly written and totally addictive. Such an accomplished performance. A complete, mesmerizing combination.

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3 people found this helpful

We love Kate Rudd.

A Love how the stories intertwine and each book further develops the universe. character development as always 10/10

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fantasy when it is best

I enjoyed very much to hear this book, it has all you expect of a fantasy book.

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1 person found this helpful

A captivating story which will draw you in

I listened to the sequel Muirwood series first, having the first in the series on a whim. I quickly became hooked and started on this series as soon as I'd finished. Really rich story and characters that you come to genuinely care about.

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A lovely Start

This was surprisingly good. I dont know why I expected it to be mediocre but it was decidedly not. I found the world and its version of magic Interesting and the characters were engaging and the story quite gripping. I can't wait to dive into the next book.

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Muirwood book 1

What made the experience of listening to The Wretched of Muirwood the most enjoyable?

This historical story was easy to listen to. I am now moved on to book 2

What other book might you compare The Wretched of Muirwood to, and why?

Game of Thrones.

What does Kate Rudd bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

Sometimes her voice is rather monotonous but she adds to the different characters with her different voices. Very good.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No.

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1 person found this helpful

Shouldn't Have Given Up The Day Job.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Being written by someone with a talent rather than an agenda.

What was most disappointing about Jeff Wheeler’s story?

There is a strong whiff of religious fervour, I kept expecting the trust in god theme to descend into outright Christian proselytising. Although god isn't mentioned, the author has evidently spent too long watching Star Wars and is stuck with the idea of The Force padawan.

How could the performance have been better?

Having a better story to read.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Wretched of Muirwood?

The middle and the end.

Any additional comments?

Will not be bothering with the others in the series.

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2 people found this helpful

Good but slow

An enjoyable listen, really enjoyed the start but felt it slowed down a lot in the middle and end. If your looking for a pleasant story with a medieval setting and a strong interesting protagonist it’s a good listen but not enough battles or magic for me.

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Lacking in action, heavy in character

Books like this: Lady of Magic, The Fifth Season, Book of the Ancestor

TLDR: A slow-burn journey of a girl with burgeoning powers and a young man she must protect. If you’re more into deep characters than you are a swashbuckling adventure, then this is a book for you.

The Wretched of Muirwood isn’t a super long book, but then it doesn’t need to be. If it were much longer then you would have seen the fairly concise events of the novel dragged out a little too much. If you’ve read any of my other reviews, you’ll know that I’m not the biggest fan of slow pacing, and there were certainly points where I contemplated giving up on this book in favour of something a little more entertaining, but I stuck with it and didn’t regret that fact that I did. This book may not be my particular cup of tea, but for the audience that I believe it is aimed for, it is most certainly written well. So, on to specifics.
The story follows Lia, an orphan raised within the confines of Muirwood abbey who shortly into the novel is given the responsibility to hide and care for an injured squire (of sorts) who is thrust upon her. The story then unfolds as the true nature of her charge (Colvin) slowly comes to light and the forces hunting him make themselves known. It’s a simple story, with fairly little happening until about halfway through the book, and even then, there is only a scattering of high-intensity scenes strewn about a middlingly paced backdrop. I wasn’t blown away by this book at any point really, but it did keep chugging away with enough content to keep me just about interested. However, this book certainly does have one very strong suit, and that is the characters themselves.
Lia is extremely well written. Because of the slow progression of the book we are gifted with enough time to really get to know this thirteen-year-old in a way that few other books manage. Lia isn’t some masterfully skilful adept or mystical chosen one (at least not yet). She is just a girl who has some fairly strong abilities that she has been unable to truly test… until now. She has strengths and she has weaknesses, and through the exploration of her character we are left truly knowing who this girl is by then end of the book. This was done very well, as was the development of Colvin. The young man on the run starts off appearing as a bit of a pompous prig but slowly simmers into a genuinely good young man. And the beauty of this transformation is less a change in his character and more a change in the way we perceive him and the ways he allows himself to be perceived by Lia as they become accustom to one another. Again, very human characteristics and extremely well executed.
The magic system in the novel is simplistic, but what is there is explained in fairly concise detail. I’m a stickler for logical magic systems, and although this one may be a bit wish-washy as to what it can do and how it exactly works, we are given enough explanation of what outwardly appears very vague that by the end we get a decent grasp of how it sort of works. It’s meant to be vague, and so I can’t fault it for that. The main villain in this story, the sheriff, is a fairly despicable bastard; just the right amount of creepy with the right amount evil. He isn’t some superpowered adversary. He’s just a scheming, power-hungry arsehole with a grudge to settle and an eye for the macabre. Again, for what he is, he is very well written.
The story overall isn’t particularly complex, which is both a strength and a weakness to some degree, but the one thing this book painfully lacks is action. I think there is one, maybe two fights in the entire book that have any description more than ‘they fought and person X lost’, and considering that there is a battle in the book, this is a little bit of a bummer. I like a good fight scene, and this book just seemed to gloss over them like they were actively trying to avoid them.
All in all, this book just wasn’t written for someone with my particular tastes. For those that like a slow-paced exploration of humanity’s strengths and weaknesses, then you will no doubt enjoy this book a lot more than I. There was nothing here for me to really dislike, but also nothing for me to sink my enjoyment into. Much like this review, my opinion of this book is just kind of ‘meh’.
As for narration, the writing style of the book felt like everyone was speaking proper English, with little colloquial flare, and the performance matched this. I believe Kate Rudd read the book exactly in the manner in which it was written, and so I’ll say that it takes a lot of talent to get across the slight awkwardness that the patterns of speech seemed to convey at times.

Personal Score: 3 stars
Profession Score: 3.5 stars

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