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The Forest House

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The Forest House

By: Marion Zimmer Bradley
Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
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About this listen

She was Eilan, the daughter of a Druidic warleader and gifted with visions. In a land struggling to survive both Roman conquerors and her own people's enemies, surely fate had marked her to become a priestess of the Forest House.

But first Eilan had chosen a different, forbidden path - to love Gaius, a soldier of mixed blood among the legions sent to subdue her country. So she must hide a terrible secret when she is anointed as the new High Priestess. With mighty enemies poised to usurp the wealth of magic the Forest House sheltered, Eilan could only trust in the power of the great Goddess to find her destiny amidst the treacherous labyrinth in which fate had placed her.

©1994 Marion Zimmer Bradley (P)2010 Tantor

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Critic reviews

"With the sure touch of one at ease in sketching out mystic travels.... Bradley writes with an unhurried pace and uncluttered staging." ( Kirkus Review)
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not as involving as Mists of Avalon but a great introduction to the saga.
satisfactory story telling.

great introduction to the Avalon series

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I read Mists of Avalon years ago as I have always been interested in the spirituality of the women in my ancestry. I believe in their magic, which is bought to life in this series, and inspires an inherent need to rekindle what was lost when the male dominant thinking took over.. Bradley seems very knowledgeable about all these secret, mystical ways that lost their value along with the value of what women can be at their very best. These stories speak to an empty space within us. I am hoping that the rest of the series is made available to audible soon. In my opinion Bradley is a great writer, and her stories are rich, deep and compelling.

Inspiring

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After reading The Mists Of Avalon countless times I thought I was in for a treat. However this book lacks any depth. Characters are shallow. Very simple storyline which seemed to have little point other than to introduce you to the founding of Avalon. Narrator is monotone and every male character sounds like an English Lord!

Boring

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The nation for Forest house to be re-recorded. This narrator has no feeling for the tone of the writing, and her attempt at voices,
particularly male ones, are terrible and get in the way of the text. I tried for a third of the book, but am defeated.

The narrator for the Mists of Avalon was superb. Why not use her again?

Great story, poor narration.

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Although this story is not quite As good as the Mists of Avalon it is a great pity that the narrator of the Mists was not used for this as it would have been so much the better for it

Shame about the narration

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This tale is set in iron age times by the sound of it (I'm not quite sure - several decades or even perhaps a century before the reign of king Arthur?)
It relates the story of a family of druids. The young daughter of the chief druid and a Roman soldier fall in love, but since the Romans are the enemy oppressors, they are forbidden to each other. So that gives a bit of tension and direction to the story. There is a house in the forest which shelters Pagan priestesses and 2 of the druid's daughters begin training there. The book is full of well-researched details of the times and plenty of folklore and magic.

The narrator is very well spoken and enunciates carefully, helping the text along with her carefully expressive delivery. She makes perhaps rather too much of an effort sometimes, as if she's reading a children's book to a class, so that all the male characters are rather overexaggerated and sound like pompous elephants! Apart from this, I can see that she's trying very hard and so this is an enjoyable book to listen to.
It's a good read for fans of Marion Zimmer Bradley (as I am) and I like novels set in the past, as we get a good feel for all the details of the time. This book is a little slow paced perhaps, with not very much going on and very slow to heat up to its lukewarm best. So it's not exactly gripping, and I actually laid it down several times and started other audiobooks in between listening to it,
It only really grabbed my attention when Caillean went to Glastonbury Tor to begin a House of Maidens on what would later become the Isle of Avalon. She actually meets the very ancient Joseph of Arimathea, who is referred to with reverence in the Mists of Avalon. Up till this point I spent the whole of the book waiting for some link to Avalon!

Good epic story

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A wonderful novel which gave me some background of The Mists of Avalon. Story is riveting.

Spoiled only by the narration, sounds like it was being narrated by a computer, not pausing between chapters to draw breath, never mind sentences.

The Forest House

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the readers impression of a male voice was laughable and annoying and spoilt the story for me

Good storyline

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It took me a little while to get into this, the to begin I Found it hard to listen to the narrator. However 30 minutes in I was hooked. Beautiful story and beautiful performance. Please listen

Beautiful

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Great story of the Romans and the Britons and how the Pagans. A very good read.

Enthralling

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