A Touch of Gold and Madness
Celestials of Arcadia, Book 1
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A Touch of Gold and Madness
Buy Now for $33.99
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Narrated by:
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Amanda Leigh Cobb
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Corvin King
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By:
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K.L. DeVore
About this listen
Fairytales are for the naive.
Princess assassin Gray Monroe is ordered by her father to kill the villainous prince responsible for throwing the modern world into a post-apocalyptic society. In a decrepit landscape where two magical species war with one another while a human militia hunts them all, Gray has only one thing on her mind: vengeance.
With a single focus on killing the man who murdered her first love, she believes nothing will stop her. That is until she hesitates when she comes face-to-face with her nemesis at long last.
Gray must return to the King's Palace empty-handed for her annual birthday celebration to a court of vipers who lie in wait for a slip in her icy façade. When a sinister plot is revealed to assassinate the princess, she must flee into a world where she's now hunted and must survive to get the revenge she's owed.
Prince Griffin Silas is on a mission of his own: to kill the King. The problem is he's suffering from an affliction that robs him of his sanity while making him crave violence and death. First, he needs the princess in his hands no matter the cost. In a race against his spiraling affliction, who will achieve their goal first?
The first installment in the Celestials of Arcadia, A Touch of Gold and Madness is a dark romantic fantasy about moving through a lifetime of trauma. It's packed with action, secrets, betrayal, tension, and slow-burning steam. Discover the long-buried truths concealed by those who seek ultimate power. For mature listeners.
©2023 K.L. DeVore (P)2024 Podium AudioFrom start to finish pure perfection
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Why was this so difficult to rate
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Gray is what all FMCs should be. She is tough, resilient, makes mistakes and has been through trauma but does not dwell on it. Let me clarify: she is not an angsty broody character! Thank the gods! And of course we love Griffin/Chrome. Big, tough guy MMC with just enough softness to break through to Gray. The whole enemies to lovers trope lasts about 5 minutes.
The banter should get an award on it's own. The characters are snarky and opinionated and honest.
I loved the voice actors here, especially Corvin, His deep, slow voice is drool worthy.
Come for the plot, stay for the voice actors
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Unfortunately the material did not do it for me at all.
(SPOILERS)
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The writing was very immature, adults fighting a political war came across as teenagers warring with the high school cliques. The FMC was meant to be this bad arse assassin but couldn't do anything without needing to be saved. The enemies portion of the enemies to lovers plot lasted about 5 minutes max, the slow burn was just them getting interrupted every time they tried to get hot & heavy, no yearning or pining. "I've waited 16 years for you" but he didn't even remember her until a few days ago and the defining memory is one brief moment on the playground when they were 10.
The side characters are completely one dimensional & nearly all could be completely removed without having any impact on the story at all.
The villains are cartoonishly evil, zero nuance. What was with the 11th hour declaration of love by the mother who's been nothing but completely sadistic the rest of the book. The trauma for both FMC & MMC is gratuitous and full on in its nature but completely glossed over and despite talking it up the entire book there was no reckoning or gratification to be had when the victims finally confronted their tormentors.
Finally the writing was so bad I suspect the author or editor was either absent or Ai, words used completely incorrectly (condensation instead of Condescending), everyone's name was their hair colour, and you won't forget that because they tell you explicitly every five seconds.If I was a middle school teacher I would use this book as the "don't" example to teach the meaning of 'show don't tell' in writing.
The entire plot was <insert popular book trope here> then build a story around it. It reminded me of when I went to see Moonshadow, the Cat Stevens musical. It was completely obvious the plot of the musical had been written to fit the music they wanted to use. As a result the plot was random, didn't flow, made no sense , had no satisfying conclusions and kind of ruined cat Stevens music for me. Too harsh? maybe, but this book has so many people gushing over it I was really looking forward to it and was so bitterly disappointed I needed to rage post just a little to help me process my feelings about it.
Why is this so popular?
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