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The Priory of the Orange Tree

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The Priory of the Orange Tree

Written by: Samantha Shannon
Narrated by: Liyah Summers
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About this listen

A world divided.
A queendom without an heir.
An ancient enemy awakens.

The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction - but assassins are getting closer to her door.

Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.

Across the dark sea, Tané has trained to be a dragonrider since she was a child but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel. Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.

©2017 Bloomsbury (P)2019 Audible, Ltd
Coming of Age Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Dragons Queer
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Featured Article: 10 Books Like The Game of Thrones

George R.R. Martin’s epic series A Song of Ice and Fire was already a big name in the fantasy world prior to its television adaptation, after which it became a worldwide phenomenon and one of the most-watched shows in history. The TV series inspired a new wave of interest and love for the original works, but with the show well and truly finished and just two titles left to release in the series, fantasy fans are asking: What’s next? Whether you’re a longtime fan of A Song of Ice and Fire or a newcomer to the fantasy genre who fell in love with its HBO adaptation, these books like Game of Thrones are sure to enthrall, thrill, and delight.

What listeners say about The Priory of the Orange Tree

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
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    5 out of 5 stars

Absolutely stunning

The best book I've ever listened to / read. Beautiful prose with an expansive world and plot. Narrator is fantastic and the story brilliant.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing book!

I was sick and couldn't read for a couple of weeks. Somehow, I managed to download audible, and The Priory of the Orange Tree and I was blown away by this brilliantly constructed tale of adventure, magic, love and growth. I admit it took me a few chapters to get used to all the characters and places, but the captivating story soon took me over.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great narration, engaging story

The narrator made it easy to feel immersed in the world of the book -- the different voices/accents for different characters were effective, particularly for the main characters.

The story delivered what I wanted, which was a sort of classic fantasy world to sink into and enjoy, written from a more modern/feminist lens. There were some moments where certain thematic points were expressed in an on-the-nose way, but overall I felt engaged in the story and found it easy to suspend my disbelief. I'd recommend it to someone looking for an enjoyable contemporary fantasy read

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

long story

it got a bit confusing at the beginning with the world building and trying to understand everything but it all came together at the end.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Epic Fantasy - Dragons, Pirates, Queens, Intrique

Slow starting epic fantasy. I do wonder if it would have worked better split into two (or even three) books. This book is a bit confusing at first, with all the names and situations, locales, etc but it does pick up. I stayed up until 3am to finish the last 4 hours - the battles were so well written, so easy to visualise, it just galloped along at the end (but I was disatisfied with the ending, I thought it could have been a bit more fleshed out).

So much to love in this book - Ead's love story (a love between two complicated women, in a complex situation) and Tana's struggles to be a dragon rider. There is a lot of political intrigue (and religious intrigue) which is my catnip so I thoroughly enjoyed that.

I did like the narrator and the bold accent choices - which ranged from accents that sounded like they were South East States, Carribean, African, etc to differentiate where they originally hailed from.

I really appreciated this being a standalone novel

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    5 out of 5 stars

Very good

A very good high fantasy novel. The other reviews regarding the complexity of the names and characters in the world building as challenging to follow are correct but it’s honestly worth pushing through that as once you get to know them it’s an amazing story. The narration was also great in my opinion

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting world, a good ride

I took a while to get into it and even then my interest was more in the general happenings rather than any of the characters that much, but the world was interesting and none of the plot developments made me roll my eyes as dumb contrivance. There was a goal, pieces moving towards the goal, and no idiot ball setbacks (people did do dumb things at times but not out of character). I was interested enough in the setting to wish some parts/people/endings were more fleshed out but I don’t regret staying on for the whole ride and I’ll remember this world happily.

Narrator is mostly great and though two particular character voices didn’t work well imho neither was very prominent.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

So much potential- needed tighter editing

This book has a lot of potential, with an interesting premise, engaging characters and diverse cultures. However, the tale was let down by poor editing- there seemed to be long portions where very little happened to progress the story and the narrative started to drag. The conclusion was lacklustre and unclear.

The narrator is fine, but again the reading suffers from poor editing- there are lots of mispronunciations which become very irritating and intrude on the story. I loved the array of accents and distinctive voices for each character, but occasionally these get muddled which confuses the story. It would have been great to rerecord these errors rather than hoping the listener simply wouldn’t notice them.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Slow to start but if your patient it becomes amazing

I really wish this book was not narrated by just 1 person, there are just so many characters that it gets confusing even with different accents.

The book is extremely long but well written, I almost gave up after the first few hours because there was just so many characters & mini stories going on that I was getting overwhelmed not knowing what was going on if anything.
But if you are patient enough to keep going the story is amazing!
I had heard I was a feminist version of lord of the rings, but this book is so much better!
The book is progressive having a characters presently or in the past having had same sex relationships, not shying away from their struggles.
The book in a roundabout way confronts religion & race trying to set their differences aside to come together for the greater good.
There’s so much to this world, and lots of great mini stories.

This book has everything. Action, adventure, love, loss, backstabbing, blackmail, friendship, redemption, good Vs evil… did I mention Dragons!!

I highly recommend this book and I’m going to start the next book now which I believe is a prequel

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Skip the Audiobook and Read the Physical Book Instead

I've listened to some fantastically narrated audiobooks over the years - this was not one of them.

Maybe I listened to a different book than the rest of the reviewers here, but I've never had a narrator actually sound like they were narrating a book as opposed to performing it. It was so distracting that I was never able to feel fully immersed in the story; which is a shame because I've heard wonderful reviews from people who have read the book.

It's difficult to truly comment on the story itself because I had such a hard time listening to the book, but it did feel like a bit of a slow start and it finally picked up halfway through the book.

The bizarre tone of narration and unconvincing accents also made it far too difficult to distinguish characters and follow such a complex story.

At the end of the day, I'd recommend reading the physical book rather than using up a credit on this audio book.

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