Audibooks Review: The Rising books 2-4 by Kirsten Ashley
The Plan Commences by Kristen Ashley Series: The Rising #2
Published by Audible Original Narrator: Liz Thompson, Dina Pearlman, Stella Bloom, Joniece Abbott Pratt, Joniece Abbott, Esther Wane, Gemma Dawson, Robin Miles, Clara Francesca, Lance Greenfield, Jakobi Diem, Ralph Lister, John Hartley, Rupert Channing, Sarah Coomes
Length: 23 hrs and 17 mins
on 17th December 2019
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Audible
From the unparalleled imagination of New York Times best-selling author Kristen Ashley comes book two in The Rising, an enchanting new fantasy romance series that will sweep you away!
Once upon a time, in a parallel universe, there existed the continent of Triton. The land was filled with beauty, but it was also splintered by war. Out of the chaos grew a conspiracy to reawaken the Beast, a fearsome creature who wrought only tragedy and devastation. The only way to stop him was to fulfill an ancient prophecy: Triton’s four strongest warriors must wed its four most powerful witches, binding all nations together and finally bringing peace to the land.
This is the story of their unions: the quiet maiden Silence and the savage king Mars. The cold warrior Cassius and the fiery witch Elena. The steadfast soldier True and the banished beauty Farah. And the pirate king Aramus and the mysterious queen Ha-Lah. Their unions will not be easy, but each couple must succeed, for the fate of their world is at stake....
Check out my review for the first book, The beginning of Everything in the series since the below reviews don’t rehash stuff I’ve already mentioned or go into details about the story. More just random thoughts. I listened to these when they came out, earlier this year but didn’t get around to posting reviews.
Overall: 2.5 stars
Narration: 4 stars
Story: 2 stars
Slightly better than the first one…
The narration etc is still good! I have minor issues with it.
AND I still have the same issues of the story as the first one. With the added frustration of females losing their more independent nature.
Also I can’t remember anymore if ‘Teddy’ starts to change in this book but that and Serena’s whole changing is just bullshit. You’re telling me that all they needed was someone to fuck them into becoming better people ???
Glad though, at least Mars didn’t want to be with other people because that was super meh. I don’t care if people have multiple partners but Silence wasn’t into it and if he had cohered her into it, it would have been bad.
The Dawn of the End by Kristen Ashley
Series: The Rising #3
Published by Audible Original Narrator: Liz Thompson, Dina Pearlman, Stella Bloom, Joniece Abbott Pratt, Esther Wane, Gemma Dawson, Robin Miles, Clara Francesca, Lance Greenfield, Jakobi Diem, Ralph Lister, John Hartley, Rupert Channing, Sarah Coomes
Length: 17 hrs and 34 mins
on 21st January 2020
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Audible
From the unparalleled imagination of New York Times best-selling author Kristen Ashley comes book three in The Rising, an enchanting new fantasy romance series that will sweep you away!
Once upon a time, in a parallel universe, there existed the continent of Triton. The land was filled with beauty, but it was also splintered by war. Out of the chaos grew a conspiracy to reawaken the Beast, a fearsome creature who wrought only tragedy and devastation. The only way to stop him was to fulfill an ancient prophecy: Triton’s four strongest warriors must wed its four most powerful witches, binding all nations together and finally bringing peace to the land.
This is the story of their unions: the quiet maiden Silence and the savage king Mars. The cold warrior Cassius and the fiery witch Elena. The steadfast soldier True and the banished beauty Farah. And the pirate king Aramus and the mysterious queen Ha-Lah. Their unions will not be easy, but each couple must succeed, for the fate of their world is at stake....
Overall: 2.5 stars
Narration: 4 stars
Story: 3 stars
AGAIN please audible have trigger warnings, either in the blurb or in the actual audiobook. TW// Graphic sex, rape and torture.
There are just so many people and POVs.
I do like Elena and Cass! True is also pretty likeable. Still don’t like Serena or Teddy. I just find their ‘redemption arc’ unbelievable.
There is repetition of stuff, truly don’t care to listen to people having sex especially if they aren’t the main couples. Not much is happening here though, there is some progression in the story but it’s still quite slow…
The Rising by Kristen Ashley
Series: The Rising #4
Published by Audible Original Narrator: Liz Thompson, Dina Pearlman, Stella Bloom, Joniece Abbott Pratt, Joniece Abbott, Esther Wane, Gemma Dawson, Robin Miles, Clara Francesca, Lance Greenfield, Jakobi Diem, Ralph Lister, John Hartley, Rupert Channing, Sarah Coomes
Length: 18 hrs and 3 mins
on 25th February 2020
Buy on Audible
From the unparalleled imagination of New York Times best-selling author Kristen Ashley comes book four in The Rising, an enchanting new fantasy romance series that will sweep you away!
Once upon a time, in a parallel universe, there existed the continent of Triton. The land was filled with beauty, but it was also splintered by war. Out of the chaos grew a conspiracy to reawaken the Beast, a fearsome creature who wrought only tragedy and devastation. The only way to stop him was to fulfill an ancient prophecy: Triton’s four strongest warriors must wed its four most powerful witches, binding all nations together and finally bringing peace to the land.
This is the story of their unions: the quiet maiden Silence and the savage king Mars. The cold warrior Cassius and the fiery witch Elena. The steadfast soldier True and the banished beauty Farah. And the pirate king Aramus and the mysterious queen Ha-Lah. Their unions will not be easy, but each couple must succeed, for the fate of their world is at stake...
Overall: 2.5 stars
Narration: 4 stars
Story: 2.5 stars
Sigh can’t believe how small the actual ‘big’ battle was ??? All that talk and built up etc and we get a very small amount of it. Not to mention them having help from the mystics etc was questionable because weren’t the couples supposed to be responsible. If the mystics hadn’t been there, there would have been more damaged and bloodshed or maybe perhaps the couples would have done more (which I would have perferred). I get it the author wanted to intrigue the reader about them since they are getting their book(s) etc. I love PNR so I will probably end up at some point trying them but not it if its more about Serena and Chu, I won’t be reading that, had enough of her…
I would definitely like stories of the Mermaids though! Not enough Mermaid romance books.
Anyways back to this, loads of sex, rape, torture like the other books in the series.
I still didn’t care for Teddy, but I felt like that he was gonna die to complete his redemption arc but like I said I didn’t care. Glad he helped people out, become someone better and sad for Fornus (but he’s found happiness too at the end so like…) If Kristen Ashley had spent some time in the first book making his character more interesting and sowing some seeds to making him reluctant to be bad or something than having him be a bad guy, then become good because he got tortured by his fellow bad guys and great sex and minimal amount of caring from good people.
Some characters really felt 2D, kinda the same with Serena, bad or not a good person to a good person. I dont know, its frustrating, just felt they lacked real internal motivation for things, the external things caused them to do ‘good’ things.
Other than that, I liked Elena and Cass along with Tru, Felt like Ha-Lah needed some more screen time, I did like her!
Also the part where they getting ‘gifts’ it was just so bland, like something more should have been done, they lost people their loved ones sacrificed and that was it ??
That ending was pretty frustrating as well, because Fornus is with Moira, who he was calling his SISTER not a few chapters ago because of Teddy so it felt super icky to me. What the hell? Why he couldn’t have been with some other guy/girl if he had decided to move on.
Also there is trying to be like GOT aspect of this series, the whole people writing down history and the book aspect, I mean readers already know this if they have read fantasyland but it was the whole atmosphere…
I have other quibbles but I’m too tired to write them…
I didn’t hate the series or anything but I just had greater expectations and some times it felt like oh we are finally getting somewhere before its just back to same old. It was underwhelming when I expected to more overwhelmed with everything happening and wowed.
Narration was really good though, they really bought the characters to life.
I’m finally done though, took ages. Pretty sure I could have read dozen books in the time it took to complete this. Maybe I would have preferred having this read as books first, I know I definitely would have liked if the couples had separate books.
I don’t know if I’d actually recommend The Rising series as a whole, there are aspects of it that I like that could have been better but they never came to fruition.
About Kristen Ashley
Kristen Ashley grew up in Brownsburg, Indiana, and has lived in Denver, Colorado, and the West Country of England. Thus she has been blessed to have friends and family around the globe. Her posse is loopy (to say the least) but loopy is good when you want to write.
Kristen was raised in a house with a large and multigenerational family. They lived on a very small farm in a small town in the heartland, and Kristen grew up listening to the strains of Glenn Miller, The Everly Brothers, REO Speedwagon, and Whitesnake.
Needless to say, growing up in a house full of music and love was a good way to grow up.
And as she keeps growing up, it keeps getting better.
– See more at: http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kristen-ashley/walk-through-fire/9781455533244/#sthash.7sjI0R71.dpuf
