The Staff and the Blade cover art

The Staff and the Blade

Irin Chronicles, Book Four

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Staff and the Blade

By: Elizabeth Hunter
Narrated by: Jay Britton
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Warriors. Lovers. Enemies. Legends.

Their union became pivotal in Irin history, but to understand Damien and Sari's ending, you must go back to their beginning. Four hundred years ago, a young singer and a hardened warrior met and loved each other, but their life was torn apart by violence.

But no matter how much pain and anger stain their lives, bonds in the Irin race cannot be abandoned. Damien and Sari will never truly leave each other, because those who are destined cannot be ignored.

The Staff and the Blade is the fourth book in the Irin Chronicles.

©2016 Elizabeth Hunter (P)2018 Elizabeth Hunter Fantasy Paranormal Paranormal Romance Romance Fiction Warrior

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Scribe cover art
A Hidden Fire cover art
Building from Ashes cover art
Long Ride Home cover art
Rise of the Seer cover art
Visions of Flesh and Blood cover art
Blood and Sand cover art
Air Awakens cover art
Edgelanders cover art
The Captive Omnibus cover art
A Shadow in the Ember cover art
Faelorehn cover art
Written in Red cover art
Celtic Viking cover art
Keystone cover art
Sin & Chocolate (Dramatized Adaptation) cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
It was difficult to get into the story because of the awful narration. I bought all of the books in the series without checking the narrator as I hoped/assumed that the narrator would be the same throughout. Unfortunately this isn’t the case, this narrator is unbearably slow, on 1x he sounds computerised and fake and even on 1.5x to 1.8x the voice is stilted. There is no inflection or emotion in the language.

The poor pronunciation is terrible across the book and the inconsistency makes it even worse. In Sari’s name he goes from a sharp A sound as in cat to a softer ahh sound giving no consistent vision.

I’ve used so much space for the downsides, the tale is nice and gives some history to Damien and Sari. It could have been wonderful.

Awful Narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
For those who enjoyed the Irin Chronicles, this is an interesting book. It tells Damien's and Sari's story up to and after the events in the first three Irin books. Unfortunately Zachary Webber does not continue the narrative. I was surprised, when I looked him up, to find Jay Britton to be an acclaimed voice actor. His delivery is somewhat robotic, although very clear. He's also guilty of some unforgivable mispronunciations; and a shocking lack of research - a few pages of The Scribe would have told him that Ava is an independent American woman, not an insecure English child. BUT he does the most amazing voice for Damien. Really amazing.

Listen to the sample if you're considering buying this. I did, and will listen again sometime. But if the reader is really wrong for you, leave it and read the book.

Spoiled by the change in narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
(No spoilers)
It’s always a bit of a gamble continuing a series of books when the narrator changes as you form a relationship with a particular narrator.

This is the 4th book in the Irin Chronicles, and the first after a definitive trilogy. This 4th book, the story of Damien and Sari, is divided into 4 parts, as there is a lot of history between Damien and Sari. It is a fabulous book, with excellent story telling from Elizabeth Hunter.

The narrator, though, is awful. The narrators voice is monotone, almost like an AI voice. The intonation is odd, the stress on the second half of names is odd, the pronunciation of names (including one awful massacre of Malachai) is odd, the inconsistency of the pronunciation of ‘Sari’ is annoying, but the mispronunciation of ‘Irin’ and ‘Irina’ is distracting, and takes away from the storytelling. One would think that if you are taking over the narration half way through a series, the narrator would listen to the previous books to get a feel of how things are presented.

I’m listening to the whole book so I’ll have the whole series, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to listen to it again.

Excellent story, terrible narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Same story from different perspective and annoying reader, at least Damien's voice was. Not totally bad story but not worth a lots of money.

Same story and annoying voice

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I persevered with this audio book because it’s 4 out of 8 and I didn’t want to have to purchase additional media in the form of a written copy. However the narration was awful. It was rhythmically off, huge pauses and inappropriate intonation. Also some pronunciation was so wrong I had to rewind to be sure what word was meant from the context and it wasn’t just because I’m British and the narrator is perhaps American. To be honest the whole book sounded like it was read by AI. I will not be listening to it again, and usually I listen in huge chunks but this one I struggled to last a chapter particularly if it was longer than 15/20minutes so this book took ages to finish. Also because the narration was so different and he voiced the characters completely different to the previous books it was hard to keep relating the characters to their original incarnation. It was very disappointing and did not do justice to the authors work.

Good story unbearable narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The story is brilliant - giving the background of Damien and Sari, but the change of narrator was a big distraction. I found his narration rather stilted for most of the book and, to me, his voice for Damien seemed to change occasionally. When Rhys appeared he had a Scottish, I think, accent - a complete change from the earlier books where he was English. Ava was girlish when she appeared also. I realise that we all 'see' characters in our own way and this is influenced by narrator, so a change of narrator this far into the series is disappointing. This is the second time I've listened to the series and I'm still so disappointed that I'm submitting this review (again) - I'm sure I submitted a review after my first 'listen', but I can't find it on amazon.

Disappointing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
every of this book is so slow for me...I don't know if is the reader or the story...but too slow!
I wanted to know how it was going to end but nothing I started to fall asleep while driving the other day. so stop...enough for me .sorry.

I don't think I will make it trough

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I absolutely love these books! It days stand alone but I think you do need to have read/listened to the first 3 in order to grasp the full potential of the story.
The only thing I was disappointed in was the narrator. The narrator in the first 3 was fantastic and got the voices and accents for the characters spot on, this one not so much much.

Another great book from Elizabeth Hunter

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is my favourite so far of a fantastic series . Damien and sari are fascinating together and I love the tension and passion between them .Pls give them a happy ending x

Brilliant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.