Author: Kyle Alexander Romines
Narrator: Matt Addis
Length: 7 hours 28 minutes
Publisher: Kyle Alexander Romines⎮2019
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Series: Warden of Fál, Book 1
Release date: Apr. 30, 2019
The job sounded simple enough. Rid the village of an ogre and rescue the girl. In return, the local lord would overlook that ugly business in the church. It was nothing he hadn’t dealt with before.
That was before he heard the howls coming from the Bog of Móin Alúin. Before he crossed paths with the headless rider. Before he woke to find the witch’s crooked fingers on his face.
Now, Berengar must unravel the labyrinth of secrets and lies surrounding the village before a deadly curse claims his life, all while a darker evil looms in the shadows....
**I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Kyle Alexander Romines. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.**
Ladies and gentlemen, I have a new author on my love list! I don’t usually read horror for the same reason I don’t usually watch horror movies; the story is just as likely to rely on blood-and-gore and jump scares to drive things as it is to actually have a story. Mr. Romines struck the perfect balance between violence and plot, and the overall feel was very…Witcher, actually.
Berengar was rough, gruff, and no-nonsense, but with enough intelligence and flashes of heart to make him fascinating and loveable—for the reader, anyway. He’s probably less loveable to the people whose heads he’s lopping off. He was compassionate at surprising times and was willing to acknowledge his mistakes, adding further layers to his character. I enjoyed following his journey and watching his mind puzzle out the convoluted events surrounding what should have been a simple slay-the-monster-and-save-the-girl job. I’m very much looking forward to the rest of his adventures and am hoping “The Blood of Kings” will be on audio soon.
Matt Addis was a phenomenal narrator. He brought the scenes and characters to life effortlessly and it didn’t take long for me to feel like I was in the story, rather than listening to someone read it. Male and female characters were easily differentiated without being overdramatized or fake sounding. I do tend to listen to my audiobooks at a faster speed than the default, and it didn’t affect Mr. Addis’ performance AT ALL; his performance sounds just as good at 1.2x as it does at normal speed. The audio recording was clearly of professional quality: no background noises drifting in, no obvious changes in speed or volume to indicate splicing, etc. I hope Mr. Addis continues to narrate this series.
Now, the reason I didn’t give this 5 stars was because there were some parts I had to re-listen to for clarity. Descriptions weren’t always clear, making it difficult to distinguish characters in situations where there were a lot of them interacting. There were also some jumps in the narrative (one of the werewolf chases, for example) that made the action a bit hard to follow. Clearly, this wasn’t a deal breaker for me, but it was annoying enough to drop half a star.
Bottom line: “The Wrath of Lords” was an amazing intro to what promises to be a truly enthralling series. If you love the mix of violent action and mind-games that make up the higher form of horror, I can’t recommend this book enough—and do yourself a favor by getting the audio version.
Kyle Alexander Romines is a teller of tales from the hills of Kentucky. He enjoys good reads, thunderstorms, and anything edible. His writing interests include fantasy, science fiction, horror, and western.
Kyle's debut horror novel, The Keeper of the Crows, appeared on the Preliminary Ballot of the 2015 Bram Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in a First Novel. He obtained his M.D. from the University of Louisville School of Medicine.
You can contact Kyle at thekylealexander@hotmail.com. You can also subscribe to his author newsletter to receive email updates and FREE electronic copies of his Warden of Fál prequel short, The Path of Vengeance, AND his horror/science fiction novella, The Chrononaut, at http://eepurl.com/bsvhYP.
Matt works extensively on stage & screen, but has always had a driving passion for audio, and has enjoyed creating original work with some of the greatest talents and companies in the business - hundreds of audiobooks for the BBC, Audible Studios, Random House, Oxford University Press, Hachette, Little, Brown, WF Howes, London Wall, Big Finish and the Royal National Institute of Blind People. His voice is also familiar to BBC listeners around the globe in radio plays, comedies, documentary features, books and poetry readings.
Matt has a passion for working with authors to ensure that their titles are transformed into audiobooks that not only remain true to the text, but lift themselves off the page with a passion and intellect that allows stories and characters to blossom. His skills were recently recognised when bestselling sci-fi thriller THE STONE MAN was the only acx title to be nominated for the prestigious AUDIBLE AUDIOBOOK OF THE YEAR 2015, in a finalist pool that included work by JK Rowling, Sylvia Plath and Stephen King.
You can read listeners' reviews of The Stone Man and many others at http://www.mattaddis.com/chocolatefox/reviews.html and also learn more about the team that will produce, edit, proof and master your audiobook.
Matt read English and French at the University of Manchester, and worked around the globe in New Technologies before formally training as an actor at the prestigious Mountview Academy in London.
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