Mark of Fire

The Endarian Prophecy, Book 1

By: Richard Phillips

Narrated by: Caitlin Davies

An ancient prophecy. A young woman's destiny.

Lorness Carol, coming of age in the kingdom of her warlord father, Lord Rafel, aspires to wield magic. But she's also unknowingly become the obsession of Kragan, an avenging wielder as old as evil itself. He's waited centuries to find and kill the female prophesied as the only human empowered to destroy him. However, dispatching the king's assassin, Blade, to Rafel's Keep, ends in treason. For Blade arrives not with a weapon but rather a warning for the woman he's known and loved since he was a child. With a price on his head, Blade flees - as Carol and her family are urged away on their own desperate route of escape.

Now, traversing the lawless western borderlands, Carol struggles to understand the uncanny magic she possesses and must learn to master. Though separated, Carol and Blade are still united - not only by the darkness pursuing them both but by a quest toward destiny, revenge, and the revelations of an ancient prophecy that signal the ultimate war between good and evil.

©2017 Richard Phillips (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

I can't listen anymore. I will read the rest.

Richard Phillips is a new author to me. I noticed some mild discrepancies in vocabulary like interchanging gully and arroyo, which is probably a reflection of his geographic location. I have immensely enjoyed the story and intend to read the remaining books in the series. It was a little difficult at first to keep track of the numerous characters introduced. It also amused me that the names of several characters were unique, like Hawthorne, Rafel, Arn/Blade, Blalock, etc. - but the main protagonist and her brother are Carol and Alan.

When I start a series, I usually switch back and forth between reading and listening. I enjoy listening while knitting, crocheting, etc. However, I CANNOT listen to this narrator, Caitlin Davies, any longer. She has a monotone cadence, pauses inappropriately and then finishes a sentence like an afterthought. Also, one of my pet peeves in speaking is the silent T in the middle of a word. For example, the word satin, should be pronounced sa-tin, not sa-un. I tried to give the narrator the benefit of doubt, thinking she was new to narrating. But according to the internet, she is an accomplished writer, narrator and journalist. I tried multiple times to listen and ignore what bugged me, but gave up and just read the book.

Fantastic Story

I really enjoyed this Sci-fi book, it had interacting characters and a fairly complex storyline that isn't too hard to follow. Very enjoyable. I was not a fan of the narrator's voice & inflections but obviously enjoyed the book despite it

overall loved it

I loved this book, and read it on kindle when only couple were out in the series and then in between the releases forgot, I was so happy to find the whole series on audible! can't wait to finish the whole series, although one thing I would criticize would be the young female narrators attempt at older male voices but no audio book reading is perfect and I'd rather they try n change their voice for each character than just keep the same monotone voice for everyone including narration so it's almost impossible to follow who's speaking without the "so n so said" or something similar. can't wait to listen to rest of the series!

Slow start got better

I thought the beginning was soso but I continued on and it improved. Its decent

Enjoyed Arns story!

Arn is a great character and enjoyed his point of view. I found the Carol point of view mostly annoying and wished there was an easy way to skip her all together and still understand the overall story arc. Really hoping next book has more Arn and less Carol!

I also found the narrator style odd and distracting. Hopefully the narration will improve on the next book.