- Title:
- Ring of Fire: A companion to the Amasai Rising Trilogy
- Author:
- Stevie Rae Causey
- Release:
- March 28, 2018
- Format:
- Audiobook
- Narrator:
- Susan Hanfield
- Series
While this book is a prequel, with the way it and the first book in the series are constructed, it can be read in any order. The book starts with cleverly disguised exposition and backstory as character backgrounds and history, setting up the world.
I listened to book one in the series prior to this, I was left curious about the backstory, history, and prior interactions between the characters. This book does a great job of filling in the gaps and answering those questions.
As I said in my review for book one in the series, this would make a great starter series for younger readers who are curious about the fantasy genre. Various races and species, their attributes, characteristics, and weaknesses are mentioned. But it doesn’t lay down the lore so thick that you’d need a wiki or to take notes to understand or keep track of it all.
I listened to the audiobook versions and they’re not overly long. Members of a younger audience could be listened to or read them in a few sittings and will be left wanting more. The mid-sized length of the stories means the book doesn’t dawdle and only feeds you the relevant information to the plot. As much as I love a good lore-rich fantasy series, sometimes it’s nice to just get in and out and not have to commit dozens of hours to read and research.
I’m sure there’s a lot of young girls out there who would enjoy a female protagonist in a fantasy series as well. Despite enjoying the genre, I don’t read it much. I often re-read the same few books and all the ones I can think of off the top of my head have male protagonists.
Overall, the audio narration is great. There is one moment where presumably one recording session ends and another began where the narrator sounds different. To me, it sounded like it could have been her chain-smoking mother narration for a couple of minutes. I wasn’t paying attention to the dialogue to see if it was supposed to be an older character because it was so distracting. Aside from that one oddity, I didn’t have any issues with the narration and she does an excellent job.
NOTE: This copy was provided to me free of charge as a digital review copy. The opinions stated in this review are mine and mine alone, I was not paid or requested to give this book a certain rating, suggestion, or approval.