Shayna

The Fate of the Faes, Book 1

By: Cynthia Melton

Narrated by: Amy Deuchler

A darkness approaches that only a fae can stop.

Evil forces threaten to cover the human world with darkness. The faerie world is dependent on the human world’s survival or they, too, will perish. Shayna, a faerie warrior of the light, is sent to the human world to prevent that from happening and must convince a human to help her.

When she reveals her true self to Detective Pierce Cochran, his world is thrust upside down. Everything he believed to be a fairy tale is true.

The faerie and the detective join forces against a growing number of demons and vampires, enlisting the help of an assortment of creatures Pierce didn’t know existed. Magic and weaponry collide as the mis-matched group of warrior’s race toward the final battle.

©2018 Cynthia Melton (P)2019 Cynthia Melton

3 stars

It took a while for me to get into this book. The characters are flat and the world building needs some work. However, I continued to listen and the book got better. Amy Deuchler did a good job bringing the story to life and giving the characters a voice. I hope the next book is made into an audiobook.

I received this book for free from the narrator in exchange for an unbiased review.

good but rushed

The main character, Shayna was hard to get attached to and the story felt kind of rushed, overall. I think the author had a good story line but some things just didnt make sense or needed to be fleshed out. It was good, just missing something.

Narration was excellent and is what was what made this book worth listening to.

Good

Even though this could very easily fit into the young adult category it was well done and kept me interested. The characters and world were very well established and it was brought to life by a very well done narration. I was given a free copy of this audio in return for an unbiased review.

Good fantasy story

Interesting take on someone finding out that fairy stories are partially true. The storyline is good and keeps you interested.

cute fantasy

the kind of story that you enjoy listening very much it's very classy Good vs Evil and a very nice world of fantasy and overall it was a great listen
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review

Loved it

This story has all the elements for a great listen and the narration adds to the weaving of a great confrontation of good against evil. An epic fantasy. Can’t wait for the second book and the story to continue
This book
was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary
review.

Narration is 4.5 star, story is 3 star

I’m going to have to agree with reviewer Kara (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2713451565): This should be categorized as a PG-rated YA fantasy, dark vs light, that seems a little campy even though I don’t think it was meant to be. There is PG battle violence (is: no gore or descriptions), no explicit language, and no sexual content other than a few kisses.

MC Shayna is the best fae warrior in the kingdom, who’s life goal is to keep everyone in the fae and human realms safe. We are immediately thrown into the action: the human world is about to be attacked my the demon hordes, which include vampires. The Vampire Kasdeya, along with dark-turned faerie Deema, is working hard to convert humans to vamps for the incoming takeover, while MC human Detective Pierce Cochran is surprisingly dragged into the fae world and fight, along with 2 of his fellow detectives. When Shayna is sent to retrieve Deema and being her back into the light fold, they are able to learn Kasdeya‘s evil plot and prepare for battle. Oh yeah, Shayna and Pierce somehow fall in love without really ever doing much together or knowing each other. It was a fast falling in love storyline.

What saves this audiobook is the Narration by Amy Deuchler. She expresses the characters fantastically.

I purchased this book because I received book 3 as a review copy for my unbiased review and I wanted to make sure I knew who the characters were before launching directly into the 3rd book.

worth checking out, I think

I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

It's not classified as YA, but I did get the feeling it was geared towards a slightly younger audience. That said, I think it is a good fantasy story that could be enjoyed by all ages. It is a little slow at first, but managed to hold my interest. The narration is decent. It wasn't the best I've ever heard, but she tries to give each character a unique voice and has enough inflection to keep things interesting. All in all, I think it is worth checking out.

YA fantasy of The Light battling The Dark

"Shayna: The Fate of the Faes, Book 1" should be classified as a YA fantasy; it felt written for a middle school or young teen audience. This book is not lesfic, but it’s pretty chaste with the hetero relationships...safe for all ages.

MC Shayna is the mightiest of Fae warriors, and is sent by her queen to earth to battle on the side of The Light against those on the side of The Dark. No...really! She immediately encounters MC Detective Pierce Cochran, reveals who she is and spends the rest of the book reminding herself that as a warrior she can't spare time to acknowledge her growing attraction to Pierce.

Actually, Shayna spends most of her time in the book expressing self-doubt in her abilities to make a difference, feeling better, expressing self-doubt, feeling better...and repeating this cycle. While there is an effort a world building, introducing lots of non-human species, and giving plenty of time to characters who will be featured as MCs in the next two books, the writing style isn't subtle or complex enough to really become immersive.

I almost want to say the material is campy fun, but I don't think it was aiming for campy. What works best is narrator Amy Deuchler's steadfastly serious and enthusiastic delivery of the material. The audiobook version is pretty entertaining as Shayna and her allies cross paths over and over with the villains they seem to be always looking for and swearing to kill.

There are leprechauns, dragons, demons, vampires and, of course, during the major battle of all forces..."ten foot bunnies" must be contended with!

If you like your fantasies on the silly side, while the material may or may not be intended as silly, I think you'll enjoy "Shayna" most as an audiobook. The three books in the series are available on KU if you want to sample the material before getting the audiobook. 2.75* for the story, 4* for the narration, 3* overall.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

My rating and my review was not in anyway affected by my having been provided a review copy.

not bad

I received this book free of charge for an honest review. I don't remember much about this that was t covered by the synopsis but I didn't hate it.