Song of the Spirits cover art

Song of the Spirits

In the Land of the Long White Cloud Saga, Book 2
Try Premium Plus free
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Song of the Spirits

By: Sarah Lark, D. W. Lovett - translator
Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
Try Premium Plus free

$16.45 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $36.99

Buy Now for $36.99

About this listen

New Zealand, 1893: William Martyn is better educated and more cultivated than the other men breaking their backs searching for gold near Queenstown. William is the son of landed Irish nobility, and he comes to town ready to invest in the best equipment. On his search for supplies, he encounters spirited and beautiful young Elaine O’Keefe, who promptly falls in love with him.

He is captivated by her charms until Kura, Elaine's half-Maori cousin, comes to visit. William succumbs at once to Kura's exotic beauty and free-spiritedness, and tension develops not only between the two cousins but also between the colonial settlers and their Maori neighbors.

©2013 Sarah Lark (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc. Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Romance
All stars
Most relevant  
Kia ora,

Loving the trio loft so far however, the pronunciation of the Māori language is extremely bad, There are several places on Google where you can hear how to pronounce Māori words. I even noticed the pronunciation of Abel Tasman.
Thank you

Performance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Enjoying the story but as a māori language speaker I am disappointed in the pronunciation of the māori words. It is an insult to the language

Māori language errors

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Written by German author Christiane Gohl under the pseudonym Sarah Lark, the saga of life in New Zealand seems a rather odd subject choice however I found the story interesting. The first book held my interest enough to purchase the second and third in the series. Translated from the original German by DW Lovett and narrated by English actress Anne Flosnik, some faults can be found. I noted that a review of the first book In The Land of the Long White Cloud mentioned the somewhat awkward pronunciation of Maori names. Not being a Kiwi, I cannot comment on these but there were some very strange pronunciations of opera names and characters. One of the most outstanding discrepancies in the translation is the use of the monetary term "dollars" referring to New Zealand currency. I would have thought that even the most rudimentary researcher would have found that the currency of the late 19th century in NZ was shillings and pounds. These minor annoyances not withstanding, I enjoyed the first two books and I am looking forward to continuing the journey with book 3 Call of the Kiwi.

Lost in translation

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narrator of this book is very robotic sounding and the lack of care taken to make sure the Maori words were pronounced correctly was just awful and really took away from the story

Pronunciation is Terrible

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
again i am dissapointed more effort was not made to ensure the correct pronunciations of the Maori language. i cringed each time i heard it mispronounced.

maori pronunciations

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.