
Dragon Connection
The Stone Crown Series, Book 1
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Narrated by:
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Amy Soakes
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By:
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Ava Richardson
About this listen
One crown can unite them—or destroy them all.
The three kingdoms lie splintered, their dragon riders fading into legends of past victories. But they’re need now more than ever when a new threat rises in the North. Lady Inyene, a cunning noblewoman, fuels her conquest with mechanical dragons forged from stolen resources. Her ambition? Seize the High Throne and wield the Stone Crown, an artifact of untold power said to unite—or destroy—the realms.
Narissea, a nineteen-year-old prisoner branded for her defiance, has spent years toiling in the mines for a crime she didn’t commit. When whispers of Inyene’s war reach her ravaged village, Narissea risks a final, desperate escape. Failure will cost her life, but fate intervenes when she stumbles upon an injured dragon and an ancient shrine. There, she uncovers the truth about the Stone Crown—and the horrors behind Inyene’s mechanical creations.
Narissea’s path is clear: infiltrate Inyene’s inner circle, uncover her secrets, and stop her before the realms fall. But doing so may demand the ultimate sacrifice: the freedom she’s fought for her entire life.
The crown’s power could save the kingdoms—or doom them all.
This book has since been republished with updates. This audiobook is based on the original edition.
©2019 Relay Publishing (P)2020 Relay PublishingListener received this title free
Narration 6/10
Even though the narrator seems skillful and conspicuous effort is put into giving life to the characters, since the first moment I could not get past the sound tone chosen for the main protagonist, Nari. The voice, for me, was totally unfit for the character and it sounded more fit for the narration of something like "50 shades of grey" and I truly cannot understand why would someone designate a slightly silly and partly sensual voice to a fantasy hero, who should normally bear a more bold voice with some, either concealed or obvious, determination to it. In this regard, no matter how hard I tried, by the end of the novel I did not manage to get used to it. As a matter of fact, during the last few chapters I decided to speed the narration up to x1.5 which surprisingly helped, since the sped up voice took away an adequate part of the aforementioned sensual - silly hue.
Additionally, although a minor issue compared to the above, I should mention that the lingual sound effects were a bit off-putting, since they sounded nothing like they are supposed to. To be more precise, a dragon roar does not sound like "squeeeeeel" and a whistle does not sound like "feet feet feet".
For confrontation to the above and to give credit where credit is due, backtracking to my premise, the narrator does possess perspicuous skill with potential for improved recitation in future work, a dribble of which can be distinguished by the narration of several secondary characters whom she portrayed greatly.
Story 7/10
The story is told via the perspective of Nari, a sixteen year old girl who has spent the last four years as a slave in a mine, when one day she will incidentally meet and befriend an injured black dragon - whose kind seems to have gone almost extinct for at least a generation - thereafter opposing Queen Inyene, who runs the slaver mines and utilizes them to gather the required resources for artificial / mechanical dragon construction, with the ultimate goal of obtaining the Stone Crown that will presumably bestow her the power to rule the world.
Despite the story being delectable, cozy and well written, it just lacks some spark. It is a pretty straight forward story, lacking a bit of inspiration, mostly foreseeable when it comes to the main events and it can be a good one-two day listen that I'd recommend to be picked in the blank between other "heavier" and darker novels to ease down and reset before immersing yourself in another one of them.
Taking into consideration the lack of danger I felt for any of the characters, combined with my apathy for anyone other than Nari, I'm left wanting for more when it comes to character development along with some intrigue and complexity to the story, more like numerous miscellany threads gradually being sewn together while the story goes on, rather than moving from point A to point B to point C and so on.
Overall, I think this could be a great read for younger ages (10-16 y.o.), people getting familiar to the English language and people getting started with novel stories, as it is a pleasant, rather simple story, with easy vocabulary to tail after. Also, as mentioned above, it can be a good read for people who want to take a break into something brief and more easygoing.
Cozy, delectable story with margin for improvement
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