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Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet
- Narrated by: Kate Rudd
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
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Read it after reading others in the series
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On a cozy fall morning, Kate Kole is nestled in a coffee shop in the city of Toronto reading her favourite novel, when she accidentally kills a guy who's being rude to the coffee shop's cashier. Unfortunately for Kate, the person she killed was a fae assassin of the North Corner of Ever, visiting the human realm in secret. From there, four deadly fae assassins come to the human realm to hunt her down for breaking a fairy law and killing one of their own.
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loss of free will
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Prose style not to my liking
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This is the way the world ends...for the last time. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the Earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.
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The Nay-Sayers are Wrong.
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Publisher's summary
Maire is a baker with an extraordinary gift: she can infuse her treats with emotions and abilities, which are then passed on to those who eat them. She doesn't know why she can do this and remembers nothing of who she is or where she came from.
When marauders raid her town, Maire is captured and sold to the eccentric Allemas, who enslaves her and demands that she produce sinister confections, including a witch's gingerbread cottage, a living cookie boy, and size-altering cakes.
During her captivity, Maire is visited by Fyel, a ghostly being who is reluctant to reveal his connection to her. The more often they meet, the more her memories return, and she begins to piece together who and what she really is - as well as past mistakes that yield cosmic consequences.
From the author of The Paper Magician series comes a haunting and otherworldly tale of folly and consequence, forgiveness and redemption.
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Aila Quinn's mother, Juliet, has always been a mystery. Vibrant yet guarded, she keeps her secrets beyond Aila's reach. When Juliet dies, Aila and her younger brother, Miles, are sent to live in Sterling, a rural town with mysteries of its own. In Sterling, the experiences that weave life together - scents of flowers and food, reflections from mirrors and lakes, even the ability to dream - vanish every seven years. No one knows what causes these Disappearances or what will slip away next.
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Always
- By Lisa Gay on 09-09-17
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Unremembered
- By: Jessica Brody
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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When Freedom Airlines flight 121 went down over the Pacific Ocean, no one ever expected to find survivors. Which is why the 16-year-old girl discovered floating among the wreckage - alive - is making headlines across the globe. Even more strange is that her body is miraculously unharmed and she has no memories of boarding the plane. She has no memories of her life before the crash. She has no memories period. No one knows how she survived. No one knows why she wasn't on the passenger manifest.
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Invested In the Tale
- By UnreliableHeart on 09-17-15
By: Jessica Brody
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The List
- By: Patricia Forde
- Narrated by: Imogen Wilde
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In the post-apocalyptic, neo-medieval city of Ark, speech is constrained to 500 sanctioned words. If somewhere were to speak outside that approved lexicon, they'd face banishment. The only exceptions to this rule are the Wordsmith and his apprentice, Letta. Together, they are the keepers and archivists of all language. But when Letta's master dies, she is suddenly promoted to Wordsmith and finds the situation more complicated than she knew.
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Love is Language
- By Jennie Smith on 02-19-21
By: Patricia Forde
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Miss Spitfire
- Reaching Helen Keller
- By: Sarah Miller
- Narrated by: Terry Donnelly
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Sarah Miller's accomplished debut presents a fictionalized account of Anne Sullivan's life and her time as Helen Keller's teacher. Arriving at Ivy Green in 1887, Anne was a partially blind orphan who had been tasked with teaching the difficult blind, deaf, and mute girl to communicate. Anne quickly learned, along with Helen, that "words are a miracle".
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Good
- By Henrik Andersen on 01-16-21
By: Sarah Miller
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The Goose Girl
- Book One of the Books of Bayern
- By: Shannon Hale
- Narrated by: Cynthia Bishop
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Princess Anidori-Kiladra of Kildenree was born with a word on her tongue, and a secret magic. Though she is raised in luxury, she is never quite comfortable with who she is, or what she is to become. Then she is sent on a journey to marry an unknown prince. The trip is difficult, and before it is finished all her expectations are overturned. Alone, friendless, stripped of her crown and her title, Ani must learn to make her own path in the world. Along the way, she just might learn to be a princess.
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Surprisingly Good!
- By Douglas on 01-08-14
By: Shannon Hale
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Always a Witch
- By: Carolyn MacCullough
- Narrated by: Hannah Friedman
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Since the gripping conclusion of Once a Witch, Tamsin Greene has been haunted by her grandmother's prophecy that she will soon be forced to make a crucial decision...one so terrible that it could harm her family forever.
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disapointed
- By Bill on 03-20-12
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Defiance
- Courier's Daughter, Book 1
- By: C. J. Redwine
- Narrated by: Renée Chambliss
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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While the other girls in the walled city-state of Baalboden learn to sew and dance, Rachel Adams learns to track and hunt. While they bend like reeds to the will of their male protectors, she uses hers for sparring practice.
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Rolling my eyes!!!!
- By Tiger on 06-02-16
By: C. J. Redwine
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Of Beast and Beauty
- Daughters of Eville, Book 1
- By: Chanda Hahn
- Narrated by: Jesse Vilinsky
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Everyone dreams of marrying a prince - except for me. I am nothing more than a pawn in my adoptive mother's diabolical plot against the seven kingdoms. I was the chosen tool, her sharpened blade that would cut the deepest into the heart of the kingdom of Baist. But like all deadly weapons, my wedding is two-edged sword that could cost me my soul. For I am Rosalie, one of the adopted daughters of Lady Eville, and it is my duty to enter into a loveless and hate-filled marriage with the narcissistic Crown Prince of Baist.
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OF BEAST AND BEAUTY
- By 🐺 SCARLET PIMPERNEL 🐺 on 11-08-19
By: Chanda Hahn
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Liesl & Po
- By: Kei Acedera, Lauren Oliver
- Narrated by: Jim Dale
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Liesl lives in a tiny attic bedroom, locked away by her cruel stepmother. Her only friends are the shadows and the mice - until one night a ghost appears from the darkness. It is Po, who comes from the Other Side. Both Liesl and Po are lonely, but together they are less alone. That same night, an alchemist's apprentice, Will, bungles an important delivery. He accidentally switches a box containing the most powerful magic in the world with one containing something decidedly less remarkable. Will's mistake has tremendous consequences for Liesl and Po....
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Great story made better by a great narrator
- By Marie on 09-16-12
By: Kei Acedera, and others
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Season of Wonder
- The Remnants, Book 1
- By: Lisa T. Bergren
- Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
After years of training in stealth and warfare, Andriana and her Knight protector, Ronan, are finally ready to answer the Call and begin the life they were designed for. But as they embark with the other Remnants on the first of their assignments, they quickly discover that the world beyond the protected Valley is more dangerous than they imagined.
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Next
- By Louise Thurman on 02-23-23
By: Lisa T. Bergren
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The Clockwork Three
- By: Matthew Kirby
- Narrated by: Marc Thompson
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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A team of unlikely friends - an orphaned street musician, a hard-working girl from the tenements, and a talented clockmaker's apprentice - discover that together they can overcome even the darkest of fears.
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HASTY CLIMBERS SUFFER SUDDEN FALLS
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 09-17-17
By: Matthew Kirby
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Into the Dim
- By: Janet B. Taylor
- Narrated by: Amanda Ronconi
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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When fragile 16-year-old Hope Walton loses her mom to an earthquake overseas, her secluded world crumbles. Agreeing to spend the summer in Scotland, Hope discovers that her mother was more than a brilliant academic but also a member of a secret society of time travelers. And she's alive, though currently trapped in the 12th century, during the age of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Hope has 77 hours to rescue her mother and get back to their own time.
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Typical YA
- By Lucy on 03-08-16
By: Janet B. Taylor
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Poor world building and character development
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As a human vessel for an ancient spirit, Sandis lives no ordinary life. At the command of her master, she can be transformed against her will into his weapon - a raging monster summoned to do his bidding. Unlike other vessels, Sandis can host extremely powerful spirits, but hosting such creatures can be fatal. To stay alive, she must run. And in a city fueled by smoke and corruption, she finds a surprising ally. A cunning thief for hire, Rone owns a rare device that grants him immortality for one minute every day - an advantage that will come in handy in Sandis’s fight for freedom.
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By the end of the book, I was just annoyed.
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Not what I expected
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Enna knows to fear the mystings that roam the wildwood near her home. When one tries to kill her to obtain an enchanted stone, Enna takes a huge risk: fighting back with a mysting of her own. Maekallus’s help isn’t free. His price? A kiss. One with the power to steal her soul. But their deal leaves Maekallus bound to the mortal realm, which begins eating him alive. Only Enna’s kiss, given willingly, can save him from immediate destruction. It’s a temporary salvation for Maekallus and a lingering doom for Enna.
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Good Premise, Bland Execution.
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Poor world building and character development
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Romance Alert
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Ceony Twill arrives at the cottage of Magician Emery Thane with a broken heart. Having graduated at the top of her class from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, Ceony is assigned an apprenticeship in paper magic despite her dreams of bespelling metal. And once she's bonded to paper, that will be her only magic... forever. Yet the spells Ceony learns under the strange yet kind Thane turn out to be more marvelous than she could have ever imagined.
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The narrator needs to relax
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Star Mother
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When a star dies, a new one must be born. The Sun God chooses the village of Endwever to provide a mortal womb. The birthing of a star is always fatal for the mother, and Ceris Wenden, who considers herself an outsider, sacrifices herself to secure her family’s honor and take control of her legacy. But after her star child is born, Ceris does what no other star mother has: she survives. When Ceris returns to Endwever, however, it’s not nine months later—it’s seven hundred years later.
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I tried to love this story
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Keeper of Enchanted Rooms
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Rhode Island, 1846. Estranged from his family, writer Merritt Fernsby is surprised when he inherits a remote estate in the Narragansett Bay. Though the property has been uninhabited for more than a century, Merritt is ready to call it home—until he realizes he has no choice. With its doors slamming shut and locking behind him, Whimbrel House is not about to let Merritt leave. Ever.
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I don't know how to fairly review a book like this
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The Raven Spell
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After a nearly fatal blow to the skull, traumatized private detective Ian Cameron is found dazed and confused on a muddy riverbank in Victorian London. Among his effects: a bloodstained business card bearing the name of a master wizard and a curious pocket watch that doesn’t seem to tell time. To retrieve his lost memories, Ian demands answers from Edwina and Mary Blackwood, sister witches with a murky past. But as their secret is slowly unveiled, a dangerous mystery emerges on the darkened streets of London.
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Too gruesome for my sensibilities
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What listeners say about Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- LotusLette
- 08-01-16
A MUST READ, BEST BOOK I'VE READ IN A LONG TIME!
im very hard to truly impress so i usually just rate books i dont give a review becaise i dont want to ruin a chance a a good reading experience for others by giving a review that may cause them to not read a book, but for a nice change i can say i couldn't ask for the book to be any better written or for a better story from the author and couldn't ask for any better narration. a great book all around. the story is one that I couldn't predict and one I'd never have dreamed up! the characters are all wonderful (even the "bad ones") and are all evolved and end up coming full circle and playing a bigger part in the story than expected even small ones.
I just can't say enough good things about this book so I'll just say it's a MUST READ
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-13-16
Genuine, haunting, and raw
It's a story that speaks of raw pain and sorrow of loss while finding in the depths of the soul to have mercy. The sentiments are genuine and haunting.
It is a bittersweet story but I feel most will identify with that.
I really loved Kate Rudd's performance of the story! Her voice was able to convey all the characters greatly!
Warning to those who may be easily triggered though. I found there were moments that were hard to get through and had to take a break.
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- Aaron
- 06-13-19
Truly bittersweet ♡
I cannot emphasize enough how much i love this book. I devoured it, and every word i swallowed left me craving the next even more. Truly it is a bittersweet thing, It took me on a journey and at its end it left me wanting more. not because it was written poorly, but it's just that good. the ending was as it should be, but i just didn't want my window into that world to close.
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- AP
- 05-03-22
Both Narrative and Story
Really good and different type of a story. Quite enjoyable!
For the first chapter I wasn't sure I'd like the narrator, but then really did. She has a beautiful voice, but a cut to her accent which I mistook for a beginner narrator, but she and her accent fit the character perfect.
The story got a little long on the bitter side but ties together so perfectly towards the end. Don't stop.
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- Amazon Avid Reader
- 07-04-16
still enjoy this author
I enjoy this author, but this is not my favorite of his. No big deal. Not every story is perfect.
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- Ari Brodeur
- 01-13-24
An intriguing story, a heartbreaking unfair ending
I can see why a lot of reviewers dislike this story, it's quite dark and harrowing. And it's blurb frankly misleads the audience GREATLY. It is not at all the story it appears to be on the surface, but I still found it interesting. I figured out the twist about halfway but it was well foreshadowed I think, and I was anxious to learn of all the missing pieces that finished the puzzle. But I can see why people found it boring, it is a very specific kind of story that's not for everyone. And while the narrator has a beautiful voice, sometimes I found the decisions of how she read characters odd and disjointed. The accent(?) of the main character Maire particularly confused me for a good chunk of the story, her voice was deep and accented when speaking but the narration, despite being in first person and her perspective, was so much different it was confusing. But it wasn't bad, I love an audiobook narrator who isn't afraid to shout!
My review mostly reflects my personal tastes and less an unbiased critique of the story. I just don't generally find God-like creature fantasy interesting, beings that live in white space and make worlds is just too broad for me, there's no culture or lore to a species like that and I find it difficult to picture what's being described, so the end of the book kind of disappointed me on that part of Maire's character. But truly the biggest disappointment of this novel was Allemas. The book did him so dirty. By the midpoint, when I'd pretty much surmised what his whole deal was, I spent the rest of the book feeling so bad for him and waiting for when all would be revealed and he would finally be given some kind of resolution to all his confused suffering. But instead he gets a short scene of some apologies and then he's gone and dead. AND THEN?? Maire and Fyel step down to have children on a world afterwards?! I've never been more hurt for a fictional character. WHY couldn't Maire and Fyel step down and live with Allemas until he died??? I find it extremely cruel and senseless and makes Allemas' entire character feel like it never had a proper conclusion. The fact that we don't even see a shimmer of an idea that one of their sons may have been Allemas reincarnated which is what I hoped for in the last chapter... I don't know. The story felt like a great allegory for loss and infertile women and the relationship between parent who failed their child and had them selfishly and yet Maire gets everything she wanted in the end and we really see no consequences or any expanse on her feelings for the child she condemned to suffer alone? I just find the ending wholly disappointing as someone who by the end only cared about Allemas as he was the true victim, a child in a man's body who just wanted his mother who didn't even know he was her son. Maire otherwise as a protagonist was kind of bland. Fyel as a love interest was also somewhat meh. I cried when Allemas cried, and that's about as far as my deep feelings went so I wouldn't say this book was bad or that I don't recommend it, but the ending is quite messy and depressing so it's not for everyone.
I enjoy Charlie N Holmberg's work and this book definitely was interesting! But my last thoughts are honestly that after reading this and The Hanging City, Holmberg seems to rush her conclusions, while the majority of the book takes it time to build up slow and steady progress, the endings come like she was only allowed another 50 pages and nothing more and she has to cram it in instead of cutting out the slowest parts of the book prior, and this book sort of suffered from that as well. But it didn't ruin the story, it moreso reflected the flaws of the story that existed regardless of pacing. I just wish we got more time with Allemas after the reveal, his character felt much more nuanced and interesting until we finally understood him and then Maire and Holmberg treated him like a paper doll as if all the build up that showed he wasn't didn't happen. I don't know, I feel bad for Allemas and he was the true main character who deserved better I think.
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- Danni
- 09-30-18
Interesting but not my favorite
I listened to the another of the author's books (the 5th doll) and I was absolutely obsessed. I fell in love with the style of fantasy that Holmberg presented. When I listened to Magic Bitter, Magic sweet, I felt a bit underwhelmed at the end. I think that the author has created an interesting universe and mythology. However, I feel as though I came in to the middle of something. There's so many missed opportunities. Ideally, this could be part of a series. I would recommend listening to this before the 5th doll as to work up to it. Going from that to this left me disappointed. However I will still continue to buy Holmberg's work
Kate Rudd was very emotional. She bought a lot of passion and variety to the story.
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Overall
- Kindle Customer
- 09-24-17
captivating
I loved it! Great story line, keeps you guessing. keeps you wanting more. :) great read
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Gothic_Potato
- 05-22-19
Beautifully written fantasy story.
Maire struggles awake to discover she is on the side of a dusty road remembering nothing about herself or why she was there. She is helped by a woman that takes her back to her village where she ends up setting up shop as a baker. She discovers that she can infuse her bakery products with emotions and abilities that are then given to the person that eats them. Life goes on until the village is invaded and she is sold. Her buyer uses her to sell special bakery goods to people you may recognize from different stories.
I really enjoyed the weaving of this story. No doubt there is deeper meaning within the pages, but I just liked the story for how well the author used adjectives and feeling to put together the loss of memory along with finding out who you are even if you don't expect or may even like where you end up.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Kellie R.
- 01-28-17
sensitive and poignant
a lovely and gripping mystery with a bittersweet ending of love, loss and transformational learning.
charming and careful painted characters, really hard to turn off
kate rudd treats these people with her delicate and careful nuanced performances.
charmed, read this one!
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