Of Blood and Fire cover art

Of Blood and Fire

The Bound and the Broken, Book 1

 Preview
Free with 30-day trial
A 30-day trial plus your first audiobook free.
1 credit/month after trial—to buy any title you like, yours to keep.
Listen all you want to a selection of thousands of Audible Originals, audiobooks and podcasts.
$16.45 a month after 30 day trial. Cancel anytime.

Of Blood and Fire

By: Ryan Cahill
Narrated by: Derek Perkins
Free with 30-day trial

Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $33.99

Buy Now for $33.99

About this listen

Born in fire. Tempered in blood.

Epheria is a land divided by war and mistrust. The High Lords of the South squabble and fight, only kept in check by the Dragonguard, traitors of a time long past, who serve the empire of the North.

In the remote villages of Southern Epheria, still reeling from the tragic loss of his brother, Calen Bryer prepares for The Proving - a test of courage and skill that not all survive. But when three strangers arrive in the village of Milltown, with a secret they are willing to die for, Calen’s world is ripped from under him and he is thrust headfirst into a war that has been raging for centuries.

There is no prophecy. His coming was not foretold. He bleeds like any man, and bleed he will.

Includes bonus story The Fall.

©2021 Ryan Cahill (P)2021 Podium Audio Action & Adventure Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Historical Military War Village
All stars
Most relevant  
I really enjoyed the first book in the series. Good mix of characters with good depth to them and a great introduction to a complex fantasy world. I highly recommend

really good fantasy listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I've just finished listening to Of War and Ruin (Book 3) and thought I'd leave the review of the last three books here for someone starting the series.
First of all, this is a very good series with some very fundamental flaws.
To avoid spoilers it's easiest to say that the story of food, if not that original, the three main characters have distinct personalities and their friendship is natural and well written, the descriptions of livery and people make it very easy to visualise. and lastly it is genuinely tense of you can get passed the following problems with this series:
- As the books go on. more and more characters are introduced, muddying the original narrative and pace (which at times is actually very good),
- Many of the characters have very very similar names, and towards the end of Book 3 one of the characters actually jokes about it. It is actually very confusing as the roster of characters increases each book, and everyone is named. At one point there's a villain, a dragon and another character with names almost identical to each other.
- Unfortunately as the story goes on, all the characters evolve and become multilayered, giving motivation and context. That is all except the main protagonist who unfortunately has the stereotyped brooding petulant anime brat personality. You would hope this would evolve, but even in Book 3 he's still doing the same thing. He is annoying, infuriating and actually distracts from what would be a nicely moving story.
- The narrator is, as usual, excellent, but even he struggles with differentiating the inflection and bodies with the sheet amount of characters.

Now, if you can get past all that, then give it a go. For the most part it is genuinely good, but I got to the point where some chapters I completely blanked on as it wasn't clear who was who and what was what, or even where we were. I actually stopped listening to some sections - much to my annoyance.
I will not be buying the next book. Despite it being left up in the air, I lost interest due to the above factors and can't ho back. it's a shame as it has so many good points, but just those really serious fundamental flaws that make parts really enjoyable.

Thanks for reading this long review.

Series Review (No Spoilers)

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I have been looking for a story like this for a long while now. This did not disappoint. Fast paced yet in depth. Left me hanging to see what comes next.

Loved it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I didn't enjoy the reading of this, the voice is very hard to listen to for long, has some strange robotic pronunciations and odd inflection. The story and characters seem interesting enough though, I think I'll switch to reading the physical book.

Interesting story let down by robotic reading

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This was better than expected. Narration is good and despite some familiar fantasy tropes, the story kept me engaged. I'd read more from Cahill.

Decent fantasy

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Story was alright, he took too many names from Tolkien though.

three more words

was alright

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Just a bunch of blatant rip off from other fantasy series. Literal just steals things. Nothing original about this book

If you want the most unoriginal story of all time read this.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is Eragon, but different characters and not as much depth as The Inheritance Cycle.. for example
Brom-Tharon
Urgal-Uraks
Shades-Fades
Empire- The Empire
Elf Aria- Elf Faelin

if your looking for a book I suggest The Inheritance Cycle because it's the original story that I admire, This book I just can't, maybe if I didn't read THE INHERITANCE CYCLE, then maybe I could of enjoy this book.

Inheritance Rip off of Christopher Palani

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.