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Sweet & Bitter Magic

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Sweet & Bitter Magic

By: Adrienne Tooley
Narrated by: Ferdelle Capistrano, Andrea Emmes
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About this listen

 In this charming debut fantasy perfect for fans of Sorcery of Thorns and Girls of Paper and Fire, a witch cursed to never love meets a girl hiding her own dangerous magic, and the two strike a dangerous bargain to save their queendom.

Tamsin is the most powerful witch of her generation. But after committing the worst magical sin, she’s exiled by the ruling Coven and cursed with the inability to love. The only way she can get those feelings back—even for just a little while—is to steal love from others.

Wren is a source—a rare kind of person who is made of magic, despite being unable to use it herself. Sources are required to train with the Coven as soon as they discover their abilities, but Wren—the only caretaker to her ailing father—has spent her life hiding her secret.

When a magical plague ravages the queendom, Wren’s father falls victim. To save him, Wren proposes a bargain: if Tamsin will help her catch the dark witch responsible for creating the plague, then Wren will give Tamsin her love for her father.

Of course, love bargains are a tricky thing, and these two have a long, perilous journey ahead of them—that is, if they don’t kill each other first. Depression & Mental Health Difficult Situations Emotions & Feelings Fantasy Fiction LGBT LGBTQ+ Literature & Fiction Magic Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Magic Users Witchcraft

Critic Reviews

"In this debut fantasy audiobook, magic has a price, and two young women make a contract that will cost each of them more than they know. Tamsin, portrayed by narrator Andrea Emmes, was banished as a young witch while trying to save her twin sister. Now Wren goes to her, seeking a cure for her father, who has fallen victim to a plague. Wren's innocent view of life is unfolded by narrator Ferdelle Capistrano. Emmes captures Tamsin's difficult emotional transformation from an inability to feel love to a hopeful attitude about the future. Capistrano illuminates more subtle changes as Wren loses some of her naïveté and uncovers her strength."
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Sometimes two girls going on a quest to stop a magical plague and falling in love along the way is something that can be so personal.

5 stars

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Perfect adventure, just what I needed.
Easy to listen to and I'm glad I got it.
Give it a try! :)

It was a good story! light read

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Really enjoyed this one, was engaged and invested with the characters and world. I love the way that Tamsin's narration and character voice shifts as the story progresses to showcase how [plot thing] was happening.

Voice acting was good all round, though the VA for Wren's portions would occasionally pause in the wrong spots but it wasn't a major issue, just made some of the dialogue or narration strange.

Solid story, very fun listen

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Simple and easy story, more aimed at teens or kids. The narration was terrible and very robotic, which probably made it worse than it could have been.

Simple story, poor narration

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I really enjoyed the story and the characters and everything about the writing. Unfortunately the narrator for Ren’s POV was extremely hard to listen to. There was a pause after every word, like a full stop. The audio quality and volume would change from sentence to sentence. It was very jarring and hard to concentrate on the story.

If you’re tossing up between the physical book and audiobook I’d go with the actual book.

Good book poor narration

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