Lord’s Fall by Thea Harrison

Narrated by Sophie Eastlake

The Elder Races saga continues with Lord’s Fall. Pia Giovanni and Dragos Cuelebre are now expecting a baby dragon wyr, affectionately referred to as Peanut. While Dragos is busy with the search for a new sentinel to replace Rune, Pia offers – no, insists on going to visit the elves in South Carolina to attempt to repair the damage to the relationship between Wyr and Elvenkind. She is assigned bodyguards she refers to as The Psychos to watch over her, led by Captain Psycho Eva. Eva doesn’t appreciate being assigned this fluff job and doesn’t respect Pia the Princess, whom she sees as a bimbo. None of them know about Pia’s secret Wyr form, which was revealed in earlier books. It’s an awesome power that Dragos does not want anyone to know, although there are a few that have witnessed it, and who are sworn to secrecy. This secret keeps the bodyguards from taking their jobs seriously since they don’t realize how powerful Pia is.

Once Pia arrives at the Elves’ demesne, she is invited into their special wood to see the great Elven Lord, and that is when the shit hits the fan. Dragos can no longer communicate with her telepathically or in dreams, so he stops the games that the Wyr are using as a way to eliminate sentinel candidates and heads south to find out what has happened.

Truly, I enjoy Harrison’s storytelling very much, but I feel like I need to read the books in print first in order to get the world-building part firmly entrenched. I got confused with who is what – I swear one of the candidates beat out the Harpy Ariel, but then Ariel was fine, so maybe there are lots of harpies? And even now I can’t relate the plot because it involves so many characters, and lots of the names echo Tolkien’s so I can’t even… Sauron? Wasn’t he one of the Lord of the Rings guys? And the God Machine – I wanted to call it “My Precious”. I think if you’re already a fan of paranormal series in general and of the Elder Races in particular, you will probably really enjoy this one. The continued romance still works, and there’s a nice HEA, as well as the adventure and excitement and action of the clash between the Elves and the Wyr. Dragos is written as a very lovably alpha hunky guy and Pia is perfect as his Mate.

Sophie Eastlake is a wonder – she really, truly GETS how to narrate. Her acting is understated but compelling – she acts out the various parts, and delivers the narrative like a champ. There are things about her narrations that could be a problem with a less gifted reader – her heroes sound pretty much the same in every book unless she is using a regional accent, even across genres, although she does a great job of distinguishing them from all the other characters in the book she is narrating. But her talent overwhelms all my objections – in that aspect, she is like Anna Fields/Kate Fleming, who totally performed every book I’ve heard her narrate, even if I could find individual nit-picking objections that I complain bitterly about when other (less talented) narrators do them. Her pacing is superb. Her sense of urgency is perfect when appropriate; she can relay intimacy with just a small shift in tone. She has a good arsenal of accents – I’ve heard her do various southern US voices, as well as other US regions, and also Irish and Scots convincingly. If I were an author writing contemporary and paranormal in the English language, I would totally fork over big bucks to hire her to narrate my work.

Melinda

Narration: A+

Book Content: B-

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence Rating: Graphic - paranormally so

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Publisher: Tantor Audio