Soulbound

The Return of the Elves Series, Book 1

By: Bethany Adams

Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir, Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

A deathbed promise.

Arlyn's quest is simple: Find her father and let him know her mother is dead. After all, Arlyn had promised her mother she'd go. The problem? Her father's people are myths and legends, and he doesn't even live on Earth. But despite a long journey through the mysterious mists of the Veil, finding him turns out to be the easy part.

A dream long buried.

After 500 years, Kai has given up on finding his soulbonded. So when he stumbles across Arlyn after returning from his latest mission and recognizes her as his mate, Kai starts their bond in haste. But he never could have imagined that his bonded is his best friend's newfound daughter. Whoops.

A hidden conspiracy sparked to life.

Though the sight of Kai makes Arlyn's heart pound, she isn't sure she can forgive him for starting their bond without her permission. But her love life is the least of her problems. Her father is an elf lord, and his sudden acknowledgment of a half-human heir reignites the same conspiracy that took him away from her mother in the first place. Now Arlyn and her family must face iron-wielding assassins, bigotry, and her newly awakened magical abilities if they hope to come through in one piece.

Arlyn thought she would return to Earth after meeting her father. Now she must fight to save the family she never knew she wanted.

©2016 Bethany Adams (P)2016 Skyboat Media, Inc.

Not exciting

I really struggled with this book. Maybe because it was more of a period romance. . . I just couldn't connect with the characters or story. sorry, probably not going to listen to the second book. Narrators did good.

I will look for the continued story..

I will want to finish the series very good, with many unexpected turns. excellent mystery, and still calm enough to read to relax before bed.

a rose by any other name would smell as sweet

although an interesting take on elven names, it felt tedious and made it harder to connect to the character.

Whiny Female Nararation

I wish I had read the book. The story was very good. The author did a decent job building up the world and characters. However, the female narration made the female character sound whiny and very very annoying. Nothing was said with any other annotation than a whiny complaining influx. I cringed my way through this book and skipped the epilogue, as I will not be listening to book 2 because of the narration. The male narration was good, but not enough to raise the low performance score I gave.

I tried

I did try twice to listen to this book . Either the narration or the writing made main female seem about 14 instead of the 26 she is supposed to be. The female narrator drew words out and made words breathe for some reason I can not fathom can not finish .

Elves and humans collide

This is one of the best books I have read in years! I can’t wait to see the others of the series. The authors world building, culture, language, is simply exquisite from page one I was lost in the book and was completely useless as I read then reread this fascinating book. Bravo! Highly recommended, move over Tolkien, you have been dethroned.

Good listen

I liked the story, but the female voice actor made the main character sound like a whiny 13 year old instead of a grown woman.

I have a new series to listen to now

I loved the idea of the story. Arlyn finding out her father was from another world. A world of fairies, elves & other creatures. When her mother died she traveled to her father's realm in search for him. While doing this she accidently met her mate and the bonding process started withoutian her knowledge. Once there she had to learn their customs and language. I loved the characters. Even the bad guys were good characters. The author also had a great pair narrating the story. Loved it & highly recommend it if you like the fairies.

Mixed feelings

I enjoyed the first book and plan on continuing the series however I must say that I'm not crazy about the narrators.... I've sped up the audio so it's not as cringy but the way the female artist reads the lead character is so whiney it gets to be too much. Also it's hard to follow because some of the names seem really similar and I get that it's a fantasy but at some points I felt lost because I wasn't sure who they were actually talking about. Overall I'm enjoying the story.

Really great book room for improvement.

Love the story so far but wish she described how people and things looked with a bit more detail. The author did a wonderful job painting a picture but feels like half a picture and the rest is up to you. When describing the manor some parts were detailed and really painted a stunning picture but then others were vague and described more how the character felt about what they were seeing but we only got a grainy picture of w.e. stunning thing they were seeing. Same with the characters they were only given very basic descriptions. Like the chapter where she was presented I was so excited to hear what the dress looked like and how it flowed as she walked or what they did with her hair, up? down? curly? straight? flowers in it? But the story itself is absolutely wonderful. I do think I will switch to reading it instead of listening though. The readers do a good job but there are moments were how they are reading it pull me away from the story, I love what's going on in the scene and want to be enthralled in it but the voice choices for the characters and the flatness in places pulls my attention away. But I am excited to read the rest of this series myself!