Time for another Trope Tuesday Book Review for the Trope Tuesday Link-Up. This week’s trope is undiscovered powers, and I will be reviewing Raybearer by.
As a reminder each week there will be a trope for you to use as inspiration, find the trope list here. All post types are welcome: lists, book reviews, anything really, feel free to make it your own. Please link back to All the Books and Chocolate in your own post so that others know where to find more information. You can find the link-up link at the bottom of the page.
Undiscovered Powers
The Undiscovered Powers trope is used very often in fantasy. The protagonist suddenly discovers that they have powers they never knew they had. Sometimes the protagonist already has powers, and these are just new powers and sometimes, these are all new powers.
Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko Review
Young Adult Fantasy
Rating:
Synopsis
Nothing is more important than loyalty.
But what if you’ve sworn to protect the one you were born to destroy?
Tarisai has always longed for the warmth of a family. She was raised in isolation by a mysterious, often absent mother known only as The Lady. The Lady sends her to the capital of the global empire of Aritsar to compete with other children to be chosen as one of the Crown Prince’s Council of 11. If she’s picked, she’ll be joined with the other Council members through the Ray, a bond deeper than blood. That closeness is irresistible to Tarisai, who has always wanted to belong somewhere. But The Lady has other ideas, including a magical wish that Tarisai is compelled to obey: Kill the Crown Prince once she gains his trust. Tarisai won’t stand by and become someone’s pawn—but is she strong enough to choose a different path for herself? With extraordinary world-building and breathtaking prose, Raybearer is the story of loyalty, fate, and the lengths we’re willing to go for the ones we love.
Goodreads
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Review
Raybearer was my first advanced audio book from Netgalley. I like to consider myself a bit of an audiobook connoisseur and believe me when I tell you that a bad narrator can make or break an audiobook. Well Joniece Abbott-Pratt did a fantastic job. I loved the different voices she used for the character. I was never confused about who was speaking. She was wonderful and I would certainly listen to more books narrated by her.
Not only was the narration great, but the story was wonderful too! Tarisai was such an interesting character. I loved all of the internal struggles she went through throughout the course of the story. The world-building was great! The political system was so interesting and the more I learned about it the more impressed I was with how well it fits into the overall story.
There are a ton of side characters in this book, oftentimes that leads to confusion, but it was handled very well in this book. The different levels of side checkers helped with really 3 main side characters and others that played an important role, but were not mentioned as much.
I really enjoyed this book and am already looking forward to the next book in the series.