Truthwitch

A Witchlands Novel

By: Susan Dennard

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

On a continent ruled by three empires, some are born with a "witchery", a magical skill that sets them apart from others.

In the Witchlands, there are almost as many types of magic as there are ways to get in trouble - as two desperate young women know all too well.

Safiya is a Truthwitch, able to discern truth from lie. It's a powerful magic that many would kill to have on their side, especially among the nobility to which Safi was born. So Safi must keep her gift hidden, lest she be used as a pawn in the struggle between empires.

Iseult, a Threadwitch, can see the invisible ties that bind and entangle the lives around her - but she cannot see the bonds that touch her own heart. Her unlikely friendship with Safi has taken her from life as an outcast into one of reckless adventure, where she is a cool, wary balance to Safi's hotheaded impulsiveness.

Safi and Iseult just want to be free to live their own lives, but war is coming to the Witchlands. With the help of the cunning Prince Merik (a Windwitch and ship's captain) and the hindrance of a Bloodwitch bent on revenge, the friends must fight emperors, princes, and mercenaries alike, who will stop at nothing to get their hands on a Truthwitch.

©2016 Susan Dennard (P)2016 Listening Library

Worth pushing through the first few chapters

Good story, great characters and evidence of character development. I'm not sure if the first few chapters were slow or if I was so distracted by the narrator's accents that I couldn't pay attention. Eventually the story and the characters captured my imagination and the accents stopped being a distraction- sometimes they even helped me to distinguish which character was speaking. I am definitely going to listen to the next book in the series.

Worth it if you stick around

In the end I enjoyed this book, however I thought the beginning moved pretty slowly. I was well into the book before I really was able to immerse myself into the story line. I thought most of the characters are hard to empathize with until you get farther into the story, so if you, as a reader, are willing to stick with it the book is worth it, but it might take you some time to get there. The performance by Cassandra Campbell was excellent. Her use of accents and character voices helped me as a listener differentiate characters without sounding overdone.

great story!

Couldnt stop listening. Enjoyed the story. didnt like the fake accent and isolde & sophie ran together during storytelling. too little distinction from character in voices.

Love, love, love!

This is an exciting story that had me instantly hooked! It's complex and Susan Dennard is brilliant with weaving all of the elements of these characters and their relationship to each other together. Genius! The world, politics, and traditions that are within Truthwitch make it a place that I would never want to leave! Beautiful storyline, I highly recommend it.

Adventure in a world so real you'll want to stay

This is the first title in the Witchlands series, pack your bags and prepare to be swept away. A great adventure across new lands and sea, characters brave and foolish, political intrigue unfathomable and a prophecy all revealed with style and flair. Truthwitch is the tale of a new world so real, complex enough to be both refreshing and frustrating to discover! A story of best friends, new friends, loyalty and the trouble such can get you into. Not dystopian, but realistic enough to awaken the reader's hope and inspire a desire to learn self-defense fighting techniques!

Love the world

Loads of new names which is a bit hard to follow with an audiobook, but still the story shone through and the world of witches is somewhere I want to be more

Read this one in print.

This is a great story that I read in print before listening to the audiobook. I preferred the former experience, as the character voices in this performance are mediocre and all very similar.

Don’t skip this story entirely, though! It’s going to be a TV show soon, so read it now! :)

Fun escape

Normally which stories are shallow on the variety in terms of the magic system but I really enjoyed the nuances here. great characters, great twists, cool variety among the different players.

The narrator is fabulous, wonderful with accents and brought the characters and story to life. I will buy next in the series!

Fast-Paced

I ended up really liking this book. Other reviewers are right that it is a little hard to follow at first. I feel as though there needed to be more backstory. Because of this, I almost lost interest. There are a bunch of things I don't understand and things that could have been described better. I don't understand thread stones/ thread sisters, or heart threads at all. What do these look like, what makes someone thread family or a heart thread? I don't get that. I'm hoping as the books go on there will be more/ better world building.

When I was about to give up on this book it started getting interesting. I slightly began to catch on to little things here and there. My favorite part about this book is how fast-paced it is. There are no long drawn out chapters explaining boring pointless details, each event comes right after the other. No matter where you are in the book there is always something interesting building or going on. No lulls in the plot whatsoever. I feel like this book could have been 10 chapters longer and it still would have been just as good.

Cassandra Campbell did a wonderful job narrating. Other reviewers said they couldn't understand the thick accents she did, but I disagree. I thought it was beautifully done and not annoying like some readers make Russian accents sound.

Love the characters and can't wait for the next one!

Good

Book was good but narrator accent irritated me. I would read rather than listen to.