| Series: | Born Prophecy #1 |
| Pub. Date: | Nov 20, 2018 June 11, 2019 |
| Publishers: | Tantor Audio Kensington |
| Narrator: | Zehra Jane Naqvi |
| Length: | 10 hrs 1 min 298 pgs |
| Source: | Hoopla / NetGalley |
I had this book in my TBR on Hoopla when I saw it come across my NetGalley feed, and realized that Kensington was doing a re-release this past June. That having renewed my interest, I decided it would be a good time to do an audio/print read along, so I snatched this one up. Unfortunately, life and work travel got in the way that prevented me from getting the book read (and reviewed) prior to that re-release date... which seems to be the story of my life this year. But I'm glad I finally got to enjoy the story and meet a new cast of characters from Katie MacAlister.
Because of the aforementioned travel, I actually ended up listening to most of this story in audio rather than switching back and forth with the print version. I liked the narrator's voice and inflection, though I wish she had been able to differentiate between character voices. It was sometimes hard to tell what character's POV we were hearing, as they all sounded the same, and it wasn't always readily apparent who was starting off the chapter - Deo, Hallow or Allegria.
So this story is set up to have three protagonists, the aforementioned Deo, Hallow and Allegria. Deo is the son of two monarchs, and is prophesied to unite realms and bring peace to warring factions. However, that doesn't quite happen and we follow Deo briefly through his life as he encounters Hallow and Allegria, who will play a larger roles as they come of age and the battles against magical invaders converge in the future. Once Allegria and Hallow come into the picture, Deo takes more of a backseat role and I felt like the story was taken over by these two "secondary" characters (for lack of a better term). But I liked Allegria and Hallow, more so than Deo, and I enjoyed following the battle story from their POV. I probably liked Allegria best of the three, and felt like she added a touch of humor to the story, particularly when it came to her thoughts of Hallow. In addition, a budding romantic relationship provided a nice distraction that helped to advance the plot in between battles.
While I did enjoy this story and the action it offered, it seemed that some important events happened off-page which I felt would have been better included in the story. I wasn't quite sure what the motivations of the chaos-magic-wielding invaders were, so I hope that is explained more in the future installments, particularly when it comes to the role being played by Deo's mother. I liked the murky motivations of Deo's father, and the fact that we couldn't quite figure out if he was an antagonist or actually working toward the best interests of our protagonists. But I particularly liked Allegria and Hallow's brands of magic, and Allegria's potential connections to a sun goddess. I do hope we get to see more of them in the future.
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